


Diploma

by internetname



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-29 12:35:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 41,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1005527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/internetname/pseuds/internetname
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney McKay (unbonded Guide) and John Sheppard ("bonded" Sentinel) have figured out how to live the lives they want, and things should probably stay that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diploma

When Rodney McKay received the document attesting to his third PhD, he shared the news with his cat, drank two bottles of a too-sweet Chardonnay, and woke up with a headache.

That next night, it was a bottle of Absolut. He considered adding orange juice, but even the knowledge that he’d probably be the only person on Earth ever to see his shiny new diploma hanging on the wall in the tidy frame he’d bought a week before wasn’t enough to push things that far.

But the next night he was back to the Chardonnay. Three bottles, this time, and when he woke up, it was Monday and there was no one to give a shit that he spent the morning puking and the afternoon in bed.

Tuesday he spent almost five full minutes staring into the mirror above his bathroom sink, sternly explaining to himself that he’d actually never been much of a drinker, and thirty-six was too old to be taking up a young man’s hobby. Alcohol would solve nothing, and he could do the math to prove it...but only when he was sober.

A few days later, he thought about that, and then about the mix of vodka and Chardonnay in his stomach, and then one more time about orange juice, or a nice slice of some deadly anaphylactic lemon chicken.

Or...

Fuck it.

Of all things, it was blasting the soundtrack to _Purple Rain_ through noise-cancelation headphones for five repeats in a row, minus a piss break, that got him to contemplate life beyond the only ambition he’d mustered in the past three years: two PhDs, one in astrophysics, the other in electrical engineering. They were his consolation prize, his shaken fist to the universe to prove that, denied the one prize he was supposed to get in life, he’d make his own damn prizes, and fuck you very much.

And he hated Prince, but the baseline felt like a heartbeat.

And now he had his degrees, the ones that would do him some good, and though he’d long ago lost the ability to leave the house without the drugs – which were the worst thing ever, as they made him stupid – he could make a life now, working as a consultant with any one (or two) of a number of think tanks, corporations, multi-nationals, even the American government, which , damn them, always had the coolest toys. With his computers and the Internet and his plans to create the first-ever tele-hologram conferencing system, he’d be famous. He’d win the Nobel Prize; he’d save the world.

He just had to do it alone.

***

Radek Zelenka had been dealing with the military his whole life. His father had died in the army during a “police action,” and his mother had been furiously proud of her husband, encouraging her second-oldest son to join as soon as he was old enough. And that son had never explained what a waste his father’s death was in his eyes, what a waste, frankly, his whole country was. He kept his mouth shut and obeyed the rules and saved what little money he could while the government paid for his education and then demanded a return on their investment.

It was both the feeling that the debt had been repaid three times over and the quiet event of his mother’s own death that finally allowed him to leave Czechoslovakia before everything went to hell, walking at night until his legs were screaming and his feet were numb, until he was finally out and gone, never to return.

Odd that the people in his life now only thought of his country and his background in terms of an accent he knew they found amusing. Odd that he was viewed by others as somewhat cute and quite harmless, and that he welcomed that reaction.

Odd that he could truly take pleasure without bitterness anymore that he was the smartest man in the room.

_“Are you people even listening to me?!”_

Well, McKay’s hologram was in the room, not McKay. So Radek was still the smartest man.

“McKay,” sighed Samantha Carter, who was a woman and thus also disqualified from taking away his title. “We’re telling you what is actually available, not what you say you need.”

_“If you can’t get me the specs on the hyperdrive today, there’s no way I can catch up by the weekend. Even geniuses do need to sleep occasionally. And then who will help you figure out your glitch before the Daedalus has to launch, hm?”_

And there was the real issue: McKay’s need to catch up. His brain was a dizzying entity, and his ability to absorb knowledge almost as precognition was a marvel, but there was no getting around the lateness of his entry into the scientific community. With only a few years of work with the US military and only six months’ exposure to Stargate Command, there was still just so much for him to learn.

If only McKay hadn’t had the horrific luck to have been born a Guide. If only he’d been able to find a Sentinel, any Sentinel, even a child or someone in a coma. If only McKay responded better to the drugs and could come with them to Atlantis without dropping a hundred IQ points.

_If only you’d be silent, you’d hear the applause,_ Radek’s mother used to tell her eldest son, a violinist who’d played like an angel and died the same year as their father.

Major Carter was sighing again.

“McKay, you know we can’t clear that sort of information to be shared over an Internet line. It will have to be relayed by courier, which means it will have to be processed correctly, which means you’ll get it in two days.

_“Get the Daedelus to beam the courier here.”_ McKay’s hologram snapped while managing somehow to drink from his holographic coffee cup at the same time.

“We already plan to beam him,” Carter said with forced patience.

“Yes,” Radek added. “We have coordinates already established.”

McKay’s blue eyes, one of the few parts of the hologram that looked less than real, sent him a nevertheless effective glare.

_“You mean the clearance alone takes two days? You can’t get someone to hurry that up?”_

Carter put up her hand, miraculously staving off a McKay tirade special.

“Let us see what we can do, McKay. Meanwhile, you have more than enough material on the shield power projections to keep you busy.”

_“If they take me longer than an hour, I’ll have to kill myself in shame.”_ With only a sudden motion of his hand, McKay’s image blinked out.

***

General Jack O’Neill signed and stamped the paperwork to expedite the clearance for the courier, then passed it to his aide even as he was turning back to Carter’s report. Thank God, the woman knew he liked to get his data in short bursts. The situation wasn’t complex enough to need more than the few lines she’d devoted:

_The Atlantis Expedition needs McKay. If he needs to be put in stasis until they can isolate him on the mainland in his own lab, if we need to invent him a new drug, if he needs fifteen surrogate sentinels on 24-hour rotation to hold his hand, you need to find a way to make it happen. If not, then Atlantis needs to be recalled, and you know how Sheppard, Weir, and the IOA will feel about that._

Carter even knew better than to rehash the other alternatives. They could mothball the “flying city” until after the Ori were a distant, not-soon-enough-forgotten memory. He could basically toss Earth to the Ori for breakfast by sending Carter and Daniel out there, and hell, his whole team with himself like a dried up cherry on top. They could just tell Pegasus, _Hey, tough luck,_ and hope the Wraith never found Earth’s address in their Rolodex.

They needed McKay on Atlantis, and McKay was a drama queen with an ego the size of a mothership, hadn’t set foot outside his house for almost a decade, and was about two seconds away from killing himself in bond-denial despair on a good day of the week.

O’Neill grunted and decided to get some coffee from the mess. He missed the old days, when the only things he had to worry about were Gu’auld harpies turning him into her latest Jaffa and seducing his geek.

The red phone rang before he made it to the door, where he turned a smart about-face.

“Yes, Mr. President?”

_“Jack,”_ President Wilton’s voice rang down the line with good cheer, which would put O’Neill’s teeth on edge, except Gerry Wilton actually was a stand-up guy. _“You’re not going to believe the email I just got from Blair Sandburg.”_

***

"I realize you have no desire to play lab rat, Dr. McKay."

The hologram glared at him again, those tech-fake eyes making Radek want to challenge him, tell him what he thought of prima donnas even when they could conquer everyone on the dance floor.

That was right, yes? The metaphor.

"Lab rat?" McKay demanded. "If no one goes first, how are we supposed to know anything?"

It wasn't the response Radek expected. But then, McKay was never what he was supposed to be. It was his one constant.

"I only mean –"

"Were you coached, or something?" McKay's image demanded now. "I'm not here to talk to some mouthpiece. Do you understand the way the surgery works, or not?"

"It is not technically surgery –" Radek cautiously approached.

"Never mind," McKay snapped. "Get me someone else here, someone who isn't trying to train a good doggie and actually understands what a neural inhibitor –"

"I am not trying to train doggie! I am trying to get you to Atlantis!"

Holo-McKay scowled at him.

"I am trying to get you to where you need to be, yes? I am trying to get Great and Powerful McKay to place where he can make discoveries. I am trying to save lives of people who are there. People who are dying from Wraith. People who need massive brain even with massive ego!"

"I take it that means you're going," McKay sneered, but Radek could tell, finally, he was getting through to the man. 

"Yes, I am going, but I was talking about you. You must go to Atlantis, and this procedure will allow it."

"Because, in all the ways that matter, I won't be a Guide."

"No, not until procedure wears off." Radek watched McKay think about that.

"Six months," the man said at last.

"Yes, or a little less. At which time, you undergo same treatment again."

"Or I can find out that the procedure is permanent, and I'll never be a Guide again."

"Yes."

McKay was looking in his direction, but even with those holo-eyes Radek could tell the man wasn't seeing him. 

What would it be like, he wondered for about the hundredth time, to be someone like McKay? Or Jennisen, the female Guide he'd met in England about three weeks before she shot herself? Or Lelechenko, the Guide who walked into the lake clutching his prized Kishu Ken after leaving his millions to the Humane Society?

How was it McKay had made it into his late thirties without being insane yet? Or was he insane and brilliant enough to hide it?

"Do you think there's any real chance of it?" McKay asked in the smallest voice Radek had ever heard from the man. "Never being a Guide again? Not...being that way anymore?"

Radek hesitated, then threw what he'd been told to say in the proverbial toilet.

"Yes. I think...there is high chance. I think perhaps this is the way the Ancients reduced their Guides when Sentinels started ascending."

McKay nodded slightly, then firmly. A change seemed to come over him, his back straightening, his shoulders firming up.

"Tell them I'm in," the hologram said. Then the transmission cut off.

***

Dr. Elizabeth Weir, civilian Commander of Atlantis, looked at her military commander with almost overwhelming satisfaction, though not a trace of it showed on her face or in her body language. It wouldn't do to strut around like the governor in some old western preening over having the baddest Sentinel in the territory at her beck and call. Sentinels hadn't been the property of the state for over a century now, and John Sheppard wouldn't appreciate the slightest hint of a proprietary attitude.

"So, he's coming?" John asked. His face and body gave nothing more away than her own did. But while she sat straight in her chair with her hands folded on her desk, his long and wiry frame managed a sitting slouch that threatened to spill out of her office.

"Yes," Weir told him, watching him nod.

It didn't matter, really, and she did try to convey that with her smile. John's connection to Teyla Emmagan was strong and solid, a fantastic Sentinel/Guide pair that had saved Atlantis a half-dozen times. Considering they had found her on their very first Pegasus mission, their bond was an unexpected gift, to be sure. But no one would be foolish enough to deny its effectiveness. McKay's Guide status was basically a non-issue and would stay that way whether the procedure worked 100% or not.

"Good," John said around a grape lollipop he'd no doubt gotten off Carson. "I've talked with Major Lorne about the new requirements for all ATA carriers."

"Good, we need those people to be able to fly if they can, regardless of specialty."

John nodded, used to the way she had to repeat the obvious now. It wasn't her favorite quality about herself, but she'd learned to live with it. It was actually quite valuable in negotiations, stating what everyone already knew in different ways two, three, four, ten times until what had initially sounded like propaganda became its own sort of truth.

At least this time she meant it. They needed anyone and everyone who could fly a 'jumper to be able to get in the cockpit and fly. It didn't matter how well.

A thought occurred to her.

"McKay responded to the ATA gene therapy," she told John. "He'll need lessons."

"Stackhouse has gotten good at those," John said. "He does a thing with colored labels a monkey can follow."

"A monkey with the ATA gene," Elizabeth mused.

"We're all monkeys with the ATA gene," John muttered.

"What?" That wasn't the sort of comment she expected from her military commander.

But, of course, John shrugged it off, just like he shrugged everything off. "Just a joke."

He stood then and rolled his shoulders.

"Time for a round or two with my other half," John announced. "We done?"

She nodded. She had about twenty emails from Earth to deal with. McKay was coming to Atlantis, John and Teyla were good, Ronon was settling in to life on the city despite her concerns, and Dr. Hewston's research in the Nanotech Lab had finally yielded some insight into the Ancient's method of matter streaming.

All was well. And as Sheppard left, she noted yet again that her friend's gait, so stilted and constrained when she first had met him, was now loose and easy. It was so good that he had found his Guide. Good for him, for the city, for the mission.

No longer under a Sentinel's gaze, Elizabeth shook herself. She was getting proprietary again.

***

Freed from Weir's office, Sheppard did a sensory sweep of the control room, looking over at Chuck – one of his "grounding stations" -- with a nod. The man nodded back with his permanently friendly look. After that, it was easy to feel the city around him again while his feet took him into the transporter and then down a corridor to the gym where he'd find Ronon and Teyla: the two hundred-plus people smelling and sounding like they usually did when the Wraith weren't approaching and Daedalus wasn't on its way with the latest round of care packages.

While personally John suspected Zelenka was going to be more useful, it was good they'd gotten McKay, though the idea of a Guide's being "turned off" with brain surgery made his gut ache. He doubted the other Guides in the city would be comfortable around the guy – though, from what he'd heard from O'Neill, no one was comfortable around McKay.

What would it be like? John wondered before he could help himself. He couldn't help but hurt for a Guide stuck in his house for ten years because he hadn't found someone to bound with.

Literally, he couldn't help but hurt. Sheppard knew his genetics as well as any Sentinel. A Guide in bond-denial was going to set off every Sentinel in Atlantis, no matter what procedure he was going to go under.

He thought maybe he should set up a meeting, let all the Sentinels and Guides talk about it openly before McKay arrived. Get it all out and make plans. But that felt like doing some sort of Pride thing, and he wasn't going there.

He heard the whacking of sticks the instant the gym doors slid open. The two people who kept him functional were currently circling each other like lions facing off over catnip-encrusted steak. They'd been at it a while, too, judging by the sweat glistening like oil on their skin in the filtered light of the windows. 

Neither fighter acknowledged his entrance, and after a few minutes to appreciate the sleek lines Teyla showed off so well in that slit skirt as well as her killer swing, Sheppard moved over to a mat and kicked off his shoes. 

He wondered briefly if his team sparred so often to maintain some sort of Guide balance, or if always living in the shadow of the Wraith drove them to take every chance they could get to hone themselves. Either way, Sheppard knew how lucky he was to have them at his side, and for just a second, he let himself feel really good about that.

_All right, John. Get a grip._

After a few deep breaths and long stretches, he settled into lotus and cleared his mind.

Who knew? Maybe today he'd get another glimpse of his sprit guide.

***

Rodney McKay sat in his living room with his bags packed and waited to be shot. 

There had been a rather intense round of debate regarding how the SGC was going to transport him to the hospital. He was being beamed, of course, but suddenly being in proximity to people – so many people – would doubtlessly throw him into neural shock before they could zat him. And he'd tried, but he couldn't bring himself to aim a zat at his own body. Besides, there was some concern about a blast from that close a range.

Someone had been in the middle of suggesting a remote-controlled zat when Rodney had finally just ordered them to send someone who wouldn't ding his radar too badly to come to his home and do it.

He wasn't sure he was actually feeling anybody coming yet. If they'd sent a true specialist, not rent-a-null, there was a good chance McKay wouldn't feel him until he actually came into the house.

Galileo protested the carrier with scratches and pissed little mews, noises quickly echoed by Newton and Pajamas. Rodney absently rubbed on the various bits of cat luggage with his feet.

"If you prefer I can hold you all in my lap and share what it feels like to be hit with a stun ray."

Newton meowed loudly.

Rodney knew he'd never be a patient man. Frankly, he had never seen the value of patience. So when he became aware that the operative they'd sent to start the process that would change his life forever – oh God, please, forever – his primary emotional response was relief.

It still took everything he had to sit there while a presence came closer. The operative – a woman – was good, very calm, projecting reassurance. McKay kept a tight rein on his fear, not letting himself hurt her, as she walked into the room, took aim, and fired.

Damn. The zat _hurt._

***

_"Dr. McKay?"_

Rodney woke up with all three of his cats in his hospital bed. He smelled coffee and croissants. The bed linens were soft and sleek and clean.

He was absolutely, completely empty inside.

_"Dr. McKay?"_ the voice asked again.

Empty. Hallowed out. Gone. Numb – no, not numb, not close. Vacant. Drained. Utterly poured out.

"Here," he said, and it was a voice. It didn't resonate, didn't infiltrate. It was kind of high-pitched, actually. A little whiny, maybe. "I'm...right here."

_"How are you feeling?"_

"What a dumb question."

The voice didn't answer that right away. Pajamas walked up to his chest and made biscuits.

"Hello," he told her.

_"Why is the question dumb?"_

"I feel nothing," McKay whispered to cover the thickness in his voice, though he had no strength to wipe off the tears on his cheeks.

_"You feel nothing?"_ The voice was obviously concerned.

"No. Nothing." McKay hic-coughed while Galileo purred. "Just me."

He fell back to sleep, the sweetest sleep since...he supposed, when he was a child. He couldn't remember sleep like this ever, actually. It felt deep and black and warm. He dreamed, but it was about him, not some rape victim or jackass pissed off that the red light lasted so long. He saw his sister, dressed in a Nazi uniform that turned out to be a Mardi Gras costume. 

He saw he niece, Madison, all blond curls and little white teeth while she offered up his Christmas present last year, already trained to respond to the world's most ridiculous name and mewling piteously, a calico product of unmonitored breeding that eventually would fit right in with his two purebreds – Gal, a Himalayan, and Newton, a Maine Coon.

He dreamed of flying, which did feel a little like it came from someone else, except he felt completely secure. He dreamed of running, which was usually a bad dream, but he wasn't running away from anything, which made it nice. He dreamed of eating a sandwich as big as his head.

He woke up what must have been hours and hours later, judging by his clear head and – holy shit – rested body. Again, his kitten ranch was snuggled against various parts of his body, and coffee wafted its aroma through the room.

He seriously needed to piss.

"Hello?" he asked the room, opening heavy eyes to encounter soothing cream walls and beep-beep medical equipment. 

_"Dr. McKay?"_ It was a different voice, but it might as well have been the same.

"I need to get up."

_"First, please tell us what you feel."_

"Me. I feel me and just me. I seriously have no idea who you are, and I don't care. Someone help me up before I urinate all over myself."

_"We're sending someone in now. Please wait for Nurse Ramirez to approach your bed."_

Rodney was about to snap that of course he knew someone was approaching him. But then he realized he didn't. There was nothing beyond his skin but a blank void of nothing times nothing.

Nothing squared?

He heard footsteps, saw a face loom into view. A young man with a tiny mole on his nose smiled at him. 

"Dr. McKay?" the young man asked.

"My bladder is about to explode. I'm thirsty. I'm hungry. Where am I?"

"Let me help you up," the young man said, holding out his hand.

Rodney recoiled.

The young man smiled again, shook his head.

"It's okay. It won't hurt."

Despite his screaming instincts, Rodney let the young man with the tiny mole on his nose touch him.

It was like touching a wall, a bit of stone. It was nothing but the press of something on his flesh, as though the young man were dead but still warm.

McKay forced himself to grasp that hand, used it for leverage to get out of bed. He stood on legs that shook.

Newton jumped off the bed in a huff.

"You feel like nothing," McKay told Nurse Ramirez.

"I lotion after each wash," the young man told him.

***

_"Atlantis, this is_ Daedalus," Caldwell's voice informed the control room. _"We stand by for beaming."_

"It's always a welcome time when you visit," Elizabeth said, standing next to Chuck at the DHD with her arms crossed and her eyes bright. The Daedalus was bringing in not only McKay and Zelenka, but four new linguists to assist in cataloging the Ancient database. It was their best chance for learning about the Wraith before the race fully awoke to cull their human herds.

Current estimates said the people of Pegasus had perhaps fifty years before the Wraith awoke, a slim margin of time to do anything useful to prepare.

And there was always the chance that one of their gate teams would do something, some inexplicable thing, to alert the Wraith of their presence.

A stray thought crossed her mind: what if Sumner hadn't stormed off the expedition once Sheppard had come on board? What if he had stayed in command and the initial meeting with the Athosians hadn't gone so well? What if they had actually been foolish enough to stumble into some sort of Wraith community?

Would they have survived the first week?

Elizabeth shook it off. They had fifty years, with luck.

The white flash of the _Daedalus'_ beam deposited almost fifty new people in her city. The Marines on guard swayed back just slightly, taking in the new scope of potential threat with a single shared breath as the newcomers blinked at the walls, the stained glass windows, the breathtaking Ancient technology.

She took a breath of her own and launched into the standard speech: "Welcome to –" 

"There's no touching!" an angry voice announced. "Do you not understand simple instructions? No touching!"

Everyone turned to look at the tall, broad man with the loud voice and gray science uniform.

Another tall man with a dark pony tail and wire-framed glasses was backing away with his hands up. "It was an accident, McKay. Chill."

"I will not chill!" McKay said. "My Guide status may be in limbo, but I still know what it feels like when some wanna-be Sentinel tries to cop a feel!"

"My Sentinel status is a matter of record!" the man, whom Weir recognized as Dr. Kavanagh, snarled.

"Oh, please," McKay sneered back. "I doubt you could tell a fart from Swiss cheese across the room. In any event, keep your hands to yourself!"

"Now, now," a new voice chided, and the general attention of the room shifted to Weir's military commander, currently leaning against the transporter's open doorway. "We try to save the real abuse for the second day. Today we just get to know the new Ancient city, maybe toss a couple elbows."

John Sheppard walked into the gate room with a "fuck with me and I'll kill you" nonchalance that outstripped even his looks in making a first impression.

There was an odd sort of moment then, when Sheppard and McKay sized each other up. McKay seemed to inflate slightly, John to slouch just a tad in an almost menacing salute. And then it was over.

"Colonel Sheppard?" McKay demanded.

"At your service," the man answered, not actually bowing but somehow seeming to doff his hat with a sardonic vibe strong enough to melt copper.

McKay wavered, then frowned. "I need to see your long-range sensor array. We picked something up on the _Daedalus_ that has me concerned."

"Dr. Grodin can help with that," Elizabeth said, walking down the stairs as she nodded to the crowd of newcomers in welcome. And like a stage actor, Paul Grodin arrived on cue at her side, crossing over to McKay while forty-seven other souls remembered they were in the middle of a great adventure and started to talk.

General but well-ordered chaos took over then, as it always did with the new arrivals, and Weir lost the thread of McKay's drama as she greeted the brilliant linguists Drs. Hook, Mustafakema, Rousseau, and Kim.

"I'm so glad to meet you," she said, shaking their hands in a miniature frenzy. "We've got a lot of work to do."

"Dr. Weir?"

Coolly swallowing irritation, Elizabeth turned to Stephen Caldwell with a smile.

"Colonel?"

"A word in private, please."

She nodded, slipped the linguists an "excuse me" smile, and led the man up the stairs to her office. As usual, he ignored the chair, settling into parade rest before getting to the point.

"I've been requested to return the Daedelus to Earth as soon as possible, so with your permission I'd like to hold the mixer tonight."

"Tonight? Will it do any good with the distraction of such a new setting?"

Caldwell gave a little satisfied nod, his strong features highlighted in the bright but diffused lighting of her office. "I agree. So I believe we should have the mixer on the _Daedelus_. The people I've brought are more than familiar with the main hold, and your unbondeds know my ship as well."

Weir smiled to buy time. It was like this with Caldwell. None of his requests was ever out of line or unreasonable, but there was always just this hint of territorial markers, a glacial, steady push to take control. She wondered yet again if the reason he always stood in her office were that the only chair he wanted to sit in was hers.

Nevertheless, if the mixer were to be at all useful, he was correct.

"I'll ask the Welcome Committee to see what they can do to make the hold look festive – with your permission, of course."

Caldwell nodded.

"How many do you have?"

"Fourteen: eight Sentinels and six Guides."

She raised her brows at the high number, then lowered them when he continued, "That's not including Drs. McKay, Kavanagh, and Kusanagi or Lieutenants la Lange or Avery or Private Pei."

"I hardly see the reason for Dr. McKay to attend."

"Both the GSC and SGC have made it clear that Dr. McKay is to attend all unbonded duties regardless of his level of functionality. As Dr. Kavanagh so…directly demonstrated, McKay's Guide nature still makes him extremely attractive to Sentinels."

"He'll no doubt protest that it is a waste of time," Weir murmured.

Caldwell actually half-smiled. "I'm sure."

Weir expected it to be the end of the conversation, but Caldwell sobered and stood a little straighter.

She braced herself.

"The Guide/Sentinel Center has also asked me to convey this personally." He held out a flash drive.

"Do you know what it is?" She took it with blank-faced care.

"A rejection of Lieutenant-Colonel Sheppard's petition for recognition of his bonded status."

"What?"

Caldwell shrugged, precisely as blank-faced. "As I understand these things, his declaration that he is bonded failed to qualify because he exhibits too few signs of a successful bond."

Weir kept her scowl to herself. She had known the GSC auditor they'd hosted two months ago was going to be trouble, but she hadn't expected an outright rejection. At most, she had assumed he would get probation or a conditional approval.

"John Sheppard and Teyla Emmagan function as well as any Sentinel/Guide pairing I've ever seen."

Another shrug, though this one was almost wry as his solid muscles moved under his _Daedelus_ flight suit. It occurred to her that she'd never once seen him dressed any other way.

"Colonel Sheppard may consider himself as bonded as he likes for the rest of his life, but according to the GSC, he must continue to perform the duties of an unbonded. He is also expected to attend unbonded functions without Ms. Emmagan at his side."

Weir allowed herself a slight tensing of her lips. In turn, Caldwell relaxed his face to show sympathy.

"He can petition again in a year."

Elizabeth nodded then excused herself to read through the report before she rejoined her new linguists. Caldwell left her office with a nodded salute.

The report off the flash drive was succinct, even a little ruthless, containing terms such as "desperate" and "self-deluded."

_It is clear that John Sheppard's Sentinel talent and strength of will created a bond-proxy with Teyla Emmagan that allows him to be highly functional. However, he receives only the most basic of emotional care from their partnership. Moreover, while Emmagan demonstrates an exceptionally strong and calm mind and clear empathic sensibility, these come from a lifetime of discipline, not from being a true Guide._

A quiet, purposeful rustle of cloth had her looking up to see Sheppard slouching against the glass doorframe of her office.

"You heard?" she asked, hoping he didn't want to read the report.

Sheppard nodded. "If we're still around next year, I'll try again."

"Eventually they'll approve the bond just to get you to leave them alone," she offered with a gentle laugh.

Sheppard smirked back at her. "Whatever works. I'll spread the word about the mixer."

"You okay with going without Teyla? I could protest."

He smiled then, one of the rare genuine ones. "Don't worry about it. We're good. About McKay, though…I don't see any bonding going on while he's in the room. I plan to let him leave early."

"Why?"

Sheppard moved uncomfortably. "If he's half the genius he's supposed to be with Ancient technology, we need him, but to Sentinels and other Guides, he feels creepy."

"Creepy?"

"Yeah, like…all his bones are broken and he's really, really happy about it. He feels so damaged, it's like he's bleeding out in the field. The rest of us are getting the message we need to help him, but the guy…"

Weir waited a full twenty seconds before prompting, "Yes?"

Sheppard shrugged and stood up a little straighter. "There's no answer at the end of the line. The guy's just not really there. It's going to take some getting used to."

"Naturally, I leave all Sentinel and Guide issues in your care, John. Frankly, despite what the GSC says, you're the authority. If you want to let him skip the function altogether, it's your call."

He nodded, considering.

"I have always followed your lead on this," she continued, “ever since Sumner. And I've never been disappointed."

His eyes let her know he heard the name unspoken between them, and then he flashed one of his fake, but still charming grins. "I'll go dig up my party hat."

She smiled back and watched him leave, then deleted the report from her computer and the flash drive before, finally, going back out to meet her team.

***

"Come in, but don't let the door stay open," McKay called in response to Sheppard's knock.

Seeing no reason not to, John quickly stepped through the door as it opened, seeing the reason for the order as the door slid shut behind him.

"Nice cats," he said, looking at an enormous gray-and-white sitting on the bed with a somewhat disapproving manner. A delicate and pampered cream-colored cat was curled up on the floor, bathing itself with precise little licks, and a calico was batting at something under the desk.

"Thank you," McKay offered absently as he pulled uniforms, yoga pants, and brightly colored boxers out of a duffle bag laid out next to the giant cat. "They made the trip in the Daedalus just as well as I said they would. The vet at the SGC actually wanted me to give them tranquillizers."

Sheppard took a moment to get a really good look at McKay. It had been suggested by several people that he might want to put scientist on his team to replace Simmons, who really stunk in a firefight and seemed to enjoy going on missions less and less. She was better suited to the lab than the field.

McKay obviously stayed in shape, but had that science-soft body around the middle. John already knew his medical history, but Beckett had given the man a good recommendation for mission work. A citrus allergy and borderline hypertension were the sort of liabilities you had to expect with civilians. He wondered if the man could shoot at all.

"I wanted to talk to you about the mixer tonight," Sheppard said, keeping himself absolutely still while those bright blue eyes focused on him fully. He couldn't prevent the mental image of a child who had chopped off his hands with an axe and was proudly holding his bloody slumps in the air, but he didn't have to react to it.

"Tonight? Isn't that a little early?"

"Yeah, so they're having it on the _Daedalus_. Everybody knows it well enough."

McKay nodded, then upended his duffel bag and shook out some rolled-up socks.

"I wanted to let you know it would be better if you put in an appearance, but you can leave as soon as you like."

McKay frowned. "Actually…yes, it's a waste of everyone's time to have me go, but, this first time at least, I don't mind."

Wow. Not what John had been expecting.

"I mean, I’m still testing my limitations," McKay continued, looking at the calico cat, who was now on the desk, pawing the curtains. "And I've been told I'm disturbing to others, so they'll need to get used to me. Might as well meet them all in one go." McKay took his socks to an open drawer and dropped them in. "How many will be there?"

"Well, there's fourteen unbondeds who'll be going back on the Daedalus if they don't find a match, the six of you from the new personnel, and the seven still unbonded from the city. We've also got a couple of Athosians coming."

"Will you be officiating?"

"Participating, actually." John held it together again when McKay turned to look at him. 

"I thought you were bonded."

"I am," John said with deliberation. "But it's not official yet."

McKay frowned for a few seconds then obviously lost interest. "I will be leaving early, though. Graden and I will be working on the sensors tonight."

"You mean, Dr. Grodin?"

"Whatever. With the ZedPM at almost full charge, we should be getting twice the range we currently have."

The cream cat meowed.

"Are you hungry?" McKay asked it with concern. The cat looked at him somewhat pitifully.

"I'll see you there, McKay," Sheppard said as he headed for the door. The scientist grunted, searching for something in another duffel bag.

Out in the hall, John took a few deep breaths and headed for the transporter. It was time to spend a couple hours meditating with Teyla and letting Ronon hit him with a stick. McKay was just creepy.

***

McKay smiled as all three of his cats ate their lunch. They really had been wonderful on the Daedalus, acting and feeling completely normal – the only things in the world that still did, including the world. His Guide empathy had never extended to animals. He knew his cats only as warm, fluffy, independent, and loyal creatures. 

He was half-tempted to take them to the mixer.

Sheppard intruded on his thoughts. Life still liked to screw with him, apparently. He was finally going to be able to have sex again – hot, hard sex – and the most attractive man he'd met in his life had to be a Sentinel. Regardless of what they'd done to his brain, there was no way he was taking that chance.

Besides, Sheppard was bonded, or close enough. Maybe Grodin would like a blowjob tonight. The man would be high on the success of improving the sensors. Couldn't hurt to ask.

Pajamas suddenly decided Galileo had eaten enough and pounced. The Himalayan wasn't playing, however, and hopped up on the desk with a cautionary hiss. Pajamas settled for pouncing on a shoe instead.

It was time to see his new lab, so he washed his face and set his shoulders down the corridor. He'd forced himself to be around people the past few weeks, sitting for hours on end in the always-busy SGC mess and even letting people brush by him as he walked through a shopping mall. The people he passed now gave him space, and he ignored them in return.

The lab was a thing of beauty, as he'd known it would be. The BLUs were flashing and chirping away, rows of laptops were running simulations, and what with all the kerfuffle over the new arrivals, he was the only one there.

He found a stool, opened up his computer, plugged into the mainframe, and got to work.

At one point, he looked up and realized the mixer – posted to the activities listserv to start at 1800 – had been going on for over an hour. With a sigh, he logged off and radioed the _Daedalus._

"Yes, Dr. McKay?" Novak responded.

"Yes, er, requesting a beam up to the main hold. 

"Certainly," she said, and in a moment he was standing at the entrance to the main hold, somewhat pathetically festooned with ribbons and balloons while innocuous music played over the PA.

"Rodney McKay," an attractive man said to his right, standing just outside the door. "So glad you could join us."

"Yes, er, sorry I'm late. Working."

"Evan Lorne," the man said with a nod. "There's still some food, I think."

"Ah, excellent." Rodney walked into the hold, noticing it felt empty even while he took in the twenty-plus people walking around. He drew some stares, but no one approached him as he walked to the table with the food. Not even Kavanagh, who was talking emphatically at some dazed-looking Marine as she strangled the neck of a bottle of beer.

A look around made it clear the mixer was a potential success. Two couples – a man and woman and two women – were standing very close, gently touching each other every few seconds, looks of bliss on their faces. He felt surprise at first, which he didn't understand. Then he realized it was the first time in decades he had been able to look at a bonded couple and not feel pain. As for a small twinge of envy, well, that was quite understandable.

The food was pretty good: finger sandwiches and fruit and cheese all nicely bland to suit the unbonded Sentinels' haphazard taste buds. He actually felt okay as he cleaned off his small plate and looked around the room. 

Sheppard met his eyes and nodded. The marine escaped Kavanagh, and a rather exotic-looking private was edging towards Kusanagi.

There was some sort of stirring around the door, and Rodney turned to look at the most intimidating man he'd ever seen not sporting a gold tattoo on his forehead. He was walking into the room with the grace of a dancer, but looked like he could bench-press 200 kilograms with his toes. His dark hair fell in thick dreadlocks, his face sported a small beard, and he had quite a few tattoos (not gold). He was dressed in some sort of combination of leather and linen that should have looked ridiculous, but only made it clearer the massive gun in his hip hostler was in no way compensating for anything.

"Ronon," Sheppard greeted with a handsome smile.

"Lorne didn't want to let me in," the man rumbled.

"How'd you convince him?" 

McKay didn't hear the response, but Sheppard laughed.

His plate empty and duty done, McKay walked over to the trash bin and was turning to go when he suddenly found his field of view blocked with a tall blonde.

"Hello," she smiled, and there was no mistaking that predatory look.

"Er…" McKay swallowed.

The gorgeous Amazon smiled even more intently. She was quite amazing, really, with sleek curves and a perfectly symmetrical face. Her outfit wasn't from Earth, though it didn't really look like Ronon's either. Her sizable breasts were barely covered in a tight leather corset, and as far as he could tell, under that slit-up skirt her legs ended at her armpits. He wondered if he could possibly survive sex with her, but found, mantis-like, he didn't much care.

"I am Kaleig, daughter of Menoth," she purred. 

"Uh, McKay — Rodney! Er, Rodney McKay. Dr. Rodney McKay."

She lost her smile, though she continued to purr, as she leaned forward. Rodney felt like he was about to revisit his party food.

And then she leaned back, frowning, and he found his breath whooshing out of his whole body. Staggering back, he watched her frown deepen with displeasure.

"Nice to, um, meet you," he managed then skittered away and out the door.

Where he literally ran into Evan Lorne. Strong hands on his arms steadied him with ease while concerned eyes looked at him deeply.

"Are you all right, Rodney McKay?"

"Yes! Yes, I'm fine!"

"Do you wish to lodge a complaint regarding Kaleig's behavior?"

McKay shook his head quickly. "No, no. There's no need. I just…need to get to the control room. Dr. Grodin and I will be working on the, er, long-range sensors."

Lorne smiled with amusement, but fortunately kept his comments to himself.

"All right. I could get someone to escort you."

"I know the way," McKay snapped, stepping away from the man and from the hint of calm he was picking up from the bonded Sentinel.

Lorne nodded, releasing him, and McKay sped down the corridor to the beam-out room, his heart, he noticed with chagrin, still pounding.

He supposed he should feel disappointment about Kaleig's rejection, but he did not feel so much that he had missed out on a chance to have sex as much as that he had narrowly avoided being _eaten_.

***

Sheppard let two weeks pass before he asked McKay about joining SGA-1. With relief, he'd stopped being quite so creeped out by the man after about their fifth conversation. There was definitely something wrong with the self-broken Guide, but it was starting to feel more like someone with festering sores on their face than a crime against nature.

It had also helped that John forced himself to read through a detailed description of the Guide-nullifying procedure.

For over a century, people had been experimenting with brain surgery as a method of relieving a Guide in full-blown bond-denial. Such Guides had no defense against the thoughts and emotions of others. Guides with low-level abilities could take mild suppressants, but with a Guide of McKay's strength, the dosage required to protect them from empathic overload caused all manner of mental distress.

The procedure had been developed from research into how the Ancients had dealt with the overload of unbonded Guides when Sentinels had been among the very first to begin Ascension. Evidently, the treatment was so effective that the Guides -- who had previously been unable to "relieve their burden" – had themselves been able to ascend.

Basically, the ineffectiveness of surgery to damage Guide abilities without affecting a lobotomy came from the Guides' incredible ability to re-route brain functions. A Guide denied their abilities almost instantly found a way to restore them, whether the Guide in question wanted to or not.

McKay's procedure had made no actual alteration to his brain. Instead, a microscopic crystal had been placed in his cerebral cortex that emitted a sort of jamming signal or white noise that disrupted the link between his empathic and other Guide abilities and the parts of his brain that processed information. The Guide's brain thus didn't recognize its inabilities as "damage." 

McKay and a few other Guides that had gone through the procedure were still functioning as Guides in the various parts of their brain. The parts were simply not talking to each other.

Of course, the Guides' brains would eventually figure out what was wrong. To continue to be effective, another crystal would be implanted after six months with a different jamming frequency. Theoretically, this could continue until the Guide's natural death.

When the whole thing still struck him as an abomination, John next made himself read through McKay's psychological reports. At first, they glowed with praise and anticipation. McKay's levels were off the chart, and he'd gotten a doctorate in Guide/Sentinel Philosophy. He'd studied every Guide specialty there was, including massage, yoga, breathing techniques, Tantric sex, and even Sentinel-safe cooking. 

His twenty-year-old book on unbonded Guide safety was still the standard, and he'd done a lecture tour and a visiting professor stint in France.

And then things started getting cautious. There were recommendations for retreats and sessions with specialists. After that, the reports were frankly alarmed, and McKay was starting to show visible signs of bond-denial strain.

He'd broken down during a mixer some twelve years ago, and then had started spending more and more time alone. Finally, he'd been completely unable to tolerate being around others. His last attempt to find a bond-mate had resulted not only in McKay's falling into a comatose state, but also a pair of hysterical Sentinels who'd needed to be hospitalized to overcome the trauma of feeling his despair.

One Sentinel had actually tried to kill him, falling on McKay and strangling him until the other Sentinels managed to pull him off. Sheppard noted McKay had refused the option to press charges.

And so the past ten years had McKay living in a fortress with his cats, getting dual PhDs in astrophysics and structural engineering, inventing a holo-projection system that revolutionized the communications industry, and becoming the world's leading expert on Ancient technology.

Finally, Sheppard read carefully through the past two weeks' reports on McKay's performance on Atlantis. Grodin, Kusanagi, Simmons, and Gaul had all had a chance to work on specific projects with their new Chief of Science and Research, and they all – with varying degrees of resentment and rage – lauded his work while – with varying degrees of glee – remarking on his incredibly poor people skills.

_Well, suck it up,_ John thought as he shut his laptop. He needed McKay in the city and in the field. Just last month, he and his team had almost died trying to save a planet from a global-killing volcano. He still winced in rage at how few of the Taranians they had managed to rescue with the Daedalus before the eruption. McKay might have been able to get that Ancient warship to work, and wouldn't that have been a sweet addition to the Atlantis arsenal?

So the guy might be some loudmouthed jerk. Everyone was just going to have to learn to deal with it.

Sheppard left his office for McKay's main lab and found the man right where he'd expected: typing furiously on his laptop while snarking at Zelenka that the calculations he was making on a white board were perfect as long as they all wanted to die in the cold vacuum of space.

Sheppard walked up and got the man's attention.

"Is there something you need, Colonel?"

Sheppard had learned it helped not to look directly into those blue eyes. "Actually, I'd like you to come with me to the pre-mission briefing for SGA-1's little trip to PX7-819."

"Why?"

"Because I'd like you to come on the mission as well."

McKay finally stopped typing and crossed his arms over his chest, inadvertently emphasizing the way his nipples poked out against his light blue science shirt. "Why would I do that?"

"You'd be useful in the field, I think. If you are, I'd like you permanently on my team."

John easily made out the expressions of astonishment and horror on many of the scientists' faces while McKay stared at him in shock.

"Is this some sort of joke?" the scientist asked finally.

"No."

He had to look directly at McKay now because the man was evidently trying to bore a hole in his head with his eyes. "What if I prove to be a liability in the field?"

John shrugged. "Then I won't ask you to be on my team."

"How does your Guide feel about it?"

"I haven't asked her."

"What?! Why not?"

"The two of you haven't even met yet."

"No, we haven't."

"So, come to the pre-mission briefing and meet her."

McKay chewed on that for a while then asked, "When is the briefing?"

"Ten minutes."

"Then, well, we should leave now."

"Now works."

McKay nodded slightly, then again more firmly, and then closed his laptop and grabbed a tablet. "After you," he offered.

Sheppard filled him in on the basics as they walked to the conference room. PX7-819's gate was in a heavily forested area, and Teyla knew the inhabitants were particularly adept at irrigation and drainage. The Athosian settlement on the mainland was having trouble with this season's lack of rainfall, and Teyla was hoping to negotiate skills for the usual medicines (Atlantis) and labor (Athosian).

"And my role in all this would be?" McKay asked as they entered the conference room.

Sheppard shrugged into a chair. "Look over their technology, see if maybe they need something else we can offer, check for cool Ancient stuff."

About to take his own seat, McKay finally noticed that Ronon and Teyla were also in the room. John watched with some amusement as the man kept his distance from the Setedan and cautiously approached the woman he called his Guide.

"We haven't met yet, I mean, not really," he told her.

"No, indeed, Dr. McKay. I have been looking forward to it."

"And is this, you know, me – you're okay with it?"

Teyla's gaze went cool. "Are you planning to challenge me for my Sentinel?" she asked.

"What?! No!" McKay's hands waved wildly between them as he backed up several steps.

Teyla smiled and exuded serenity. "Then I see no reason to object as yet."

Dr. Weir entered then, holding a tablet and looking up at McKay with a welcoming smile.

"Your work here at Atlantis has been exceptional," she told him as she gracefully took her seat. "I'm so very pleased you were able to join the expedition."

McKay looked at all of them in turn before sitting down in the chair closest to the doors. "I'm not sure whether I'll be useful in the field." Sheppard watched his hands twitch on the tabletop.

"But this mission will be the perfect venue to explore your potential value outside the city," she returned smoothly. Noting that everyone was now sitting at the conference table, she pulled the agenda up on her tablet. "Teyla, you say your people have traded with the people of PX7-819 before."

"Yes, my father traded with the Anonni several times. I remember one of their irrigation experts assisting my people when I was quite young. Our harvest that year was most bountiful."

"What is their attitude towards Guides?" McKay asked.

"As far as I know, they have neither Sentinels nor Guides in their population. In any event, they certainly have no social structure for Guides."

"Meaning even if someone sense I'm not quite right, they won't know why," McKay said.

Teyla inclined her head. "The work you have been doing to soften your empathic impact on others has been most appreciated by the crew here," she said. "In time, I believe it will allow you to keep from seeming 'not quite right' to all but the most sensitive of Sentinels and Guides."

_Huh,_ Sheppard thought. So it wasn't just him getting used to McKay.

"I wasn't aware people realized, er, that is…" McKay trailed off rather miserably. But for dealing with Teyla for the very first time, John thought, Rodney actually wasn't doing too badly.

"Do we have any knowledge of their technical level beyond farming?" Weir asked.

"I have never seen an Annoni with a projectile weapon," Teyla said. "However, they are quite skilled as archers."

"I knew an Annoni trader once," Ronon rumbled, pulling a knife out of his hair. "Good blades." He offered to pass the knife around the table. Teyla took it with a look of admiration then passed it to McKay who took it with all the enthusiasm of holding a large bug. Something about the knife caught his eye, however, and he ended up examining it closely.

"This looks like a small katana," he said.

"A what?" Ronon asked.

"A Japanese sword used by the Samurai as far back as the Kamakura Period, made of tamahagane steel and forged at a heat of 800° -- Celsius, of course."

"Nice history lesson," Sheppard drawled.

McKay shot him an impatient look. "If they can make this sort of blade, it means they have a very sophisticated understand of metallurgy. Tamahagane steel combines steels of different carbon levels, which they heat up and fold sixteen times, creating I don’t know how many layers."

"131,072," John said.

McKay frowned at him for several seconds. Sheppard knew he was smirking back slightly, but didn't stop.

"Well, I was…it's just a figure of speech. Again, my point is that this level of weapons technology may mean they have other advanced weapons, including possibly explosives."

"The Annoni are a most peaceful and productive people," Teyla said.

"Nevertheless," Sheppard said, "we should be on guard."

Teyla frowned.

"Friendly guard," he amended with a smile.

Ronon cleared his throat, and McKay jerked back from the knife with a start before passing it back around the table. With a thoughtful, narrow look at the scientist, Ronon slid the blade back into his hair.

"There, you see?" Sheppard asked. "We're working well as a team already."

***

The mission to the Annoni home world, in Sheppard's opinion, was one for the books – the good books, not the "oh, shit" books.

Ronon and Teyla were perfect. Ronon's keen senses and basic paranoia filled in any gaps in John's surveillance, and Teyla's ever-alert empathy was always there for him if he started to zone.

Once through the gate with her, Sheppard had allowed himself a mini-zone with her hand on his shoulder, sifting through the air for any trace of gunpowder. He found nothing beyond the residue on his and Teyla's clothing. He signaled, and Ronon and McKay had come through as well, the former carrying all their guns.

McKay, as it turned out, was a good shot on the range, and Sheppard remembered all those courses and degrees the man had gotten when he was younger, preparing to be the ideal Guide. McKay had evidently also kept in practice. As for how he would act in actual combat, time would doubtlessly tell.

The Annoni themselves were great, a friendly people who refused to let the Wraith destroy their culture. They remembered Teyla's father fondly, and negotiations had been going well even before McKay burst into the tent, talking faster than he'd ever heard the man speak before – and that was pretty fast – and flailing his arms like he might take flight.

It took Sheppard a while to get the gist of it, but McKay was evidently horrified that an actual person was required to stand at the primary junction of the aqueduct to route the water correctly. Several people had been killed while working the levers, something to which the Annoni people were regretfully resigned.

With a minimum of insults – after Teyla shot McKay Death Glare #3 and Ronon rumbled something about the quality of Annoni weaponry – McKay detailed plans for a remote system that literally had the Annoni leader weeping in gratitude.

Within the hour, McKay was ordering Army engineers about with snark and gusto, and within three days, the work was done. The following celebratory feast was lacking in drugs, misunderstood marriage proposals, and interstellar incidents – though Dr. Linstrom ended the night by puking rather spectacularly on poor Miko's shiny little party boots.

And now a team from PX7-819 was busy on the mainland with the Athosians, digging ditches and building sluices, and they'd even picked up a few more of those katana-knives.

A soft, warm touch to his knee reminded John he was supposed to be counting his breaths and relaxing his muscles. Though he knew Ronon's eyes were closed, John heard the man snort softly in amusement at Teyla's gentle rebuke.

With a small effort, Sheppard put thoughts of the mission aside and tried to clear his mind. He thought of Ferris Wheels and flying, of clear blue skies and freedom.

McKay should be here, he thought. Or maybe it was still too soon. They needed him here eventually, though, in the Guide/Sentinel meditation room that basked in the morning light through the broad, high windows, tinged green from all the plants. McKay was probably as good at meditation as Teyla, or close enough, and he'd taken all those courses in being a Guide. Maybe he could be persuaded to teach her a few things.

A soft sigh reached him, and he opened his eyes to see Teyla's chiding expression. To his other side, Ronon was looking at him as well.

"Sorry, guys," he told them. 

"Perhaps you need to center yourself more physically today," Teyla suggested, a little edge in her voice that set off Sheppard's personal alarms. The look of sympathy Ronon shot him didn't help matters any.

"The gym?" Teyla prompted. "In two hours?"

She didn't wait for a reply, sweeping out of the meditation room like wounded royalty.

Sheppard looked down at the ground, swallowing. When he looked up, Ronon was still watching him.

"Shut up," John said.

***

"Rodney, I am telling you, the levels are sound, but there is nothing down there for us."

"A single sweep, probably done with their fingers to their noses, is not enough to determine what's really down there," McKay insisted. 

"The levels were under water during the storm before they could get ZPM to power shield fully," Zelenka repeated.

"Yes, and I'm looking forward to telling Gradin what I think of his decision that getting the shield to full strength wasn't the top priority when the expedition first arrived."

"Grodin," Zelenka muttered.

"I understand the decision to raise the city and conserve power. Our ZPM won't last forever if we have to take the city into battle, but did no one even conceive of the notion that without the shield we're basically sitting ducks out here?"

"Major Sheppard was most insistent, but Colonel Everett agreed with Dr. Weir that the current strength of the shield was sufficient."

"We have no idea what's out there!" McKay exploded, causing a few of his minions to edge away from him in a rather satisfactory manner. It was good to know he didn't need the Voice to get people to behave as he wanted. Now, if he could only figure out how to make them all smarter.

Still, Zelenka didn't deserve to be ranted at, not right now, anyway. He calmed himself before continuing. "We have no idea what's coming for us, so we need to protect ourselves as well as we can, however we can. The Wraith may so far just be an occasional tragedy, but this idea we can just tip-toe around them for the next fifty years is ridiculous."

"We are hardly doing tip-toe."

"We're ignoring parts of the city because they smell of rotten fish! We need to know everything the Ancients had to use against the Wraith – everything. Because, if you'll recall, it wasn't enough. How are we going to have enough to deal with them if we don't at least have what the Ancients had?"

Zelenka nodded at that, rising another notch in McKay's estimation.

"What exactly do you want done?" Dr. Dumais asked she approached him, holding her tablet and looking like someone ready to do their job for once.

"I want teams of four in full Hazmat suits, plus two guards also in suits. Ask Sheppard or Lorne about that. I want every inch of the city mapped, pinched, and prodded, and I want it done in six months."

"I'll need an administrative team to oversee the project," Dumais said.

"You can have two people. Who do you want?"

She blinked at him, evidently having thought she'd had to lobby for authority. But McKay knew if he didn't delegate he'd never get any sleep.

"Drs. Hanson and Hewston."

"I need Hewston to stay on the matter streaming research."

"Kopai, then."

"Fine. Tell Hanson to give Gradin his work on air purification."

"He means Grodin," Zelenka told her.

"Are you sure?" McKay said. "It sounds like Gradin when he says it."

"Am pretty sure, Rodney."

"Fine." He looked at Dumais, who was barely managing not to look overjoyed at the project he was handing her. "I want detailed protocols on the care and handling of any Ancient equipment before you go, and have all teams practice confined space safety."

"Understood, Dr. McKay."

He doubted that, but reached for his tablet anyway and promptly knocked over his coffee mug, splashing hot liquid across his hand.

"Ouch, damnit!" he shouted as the pain hit him. Suddenly, Kavanagh and Kusanagi were at his side, patting him and his tablet with napkins and asking whether he were all right.

"Get away from me, you vultures!" he snapped at them, backing off and away. He shot Kusanagi a look that had the little Japanese woman quailing. Seriously, though, he expected better from her. Kavanagh he just rolled his eyes at before announcing, "I'm going to the Infirmary. Try not to accost any Guides or blow up the lab while I'm gone."

"I will keep eye on them," Zelenka said. "Go see to delicate skin while we do actual work."

"I want those protocols written up in two days, Dumais," McKay warned before walking out. 

Damn, but his hand really did hurt. Someone must have topped off his coffee mug when he wasn't looking. Fortunately, the Infirmary was just a short transporter ride away.

"Carson!" he called as he entered.

"Ach, there's no need to shout, Rodney," Dr. Beckett said, looking up from his desk as McKay wove through the beds to reach him. "What seems to be the trouble?"

"I burned my hand," McKay said, holding it up for the doctor to see. "It's going to blister."

Beckett looked at the reddened skin. "Aye, it might." He stood and motioned for McKay to hop up on an exam table. "Did it never occur to you to put some ice on it right away?"

"We don't have ice in Lab Six."

Beckett looked displeased. "All rooms with working personnel should be equipped with a refrigeration unit and ice." He went to a large cabinet that turned out to be an ice box and returned with a cold pack.

"We could just use those chemical packs," McKay said, watching carefully as Beckett put the pack to his skin.

"We need to reserve those packs for people in the field."

"All right. I'll get someone one it."

"Thank you, Rodney." Beckett smiled at him in genuine appreciation, the kind of smile he usually only got from Sentinels – or the kind he used to get, anyway. It was odd to have someone smile like that and not want anything. McKay tried to smile back, but it felt kind of creaky.

"Now, leave that on your hand for a few minutes, and then I'll check the damage, all right?"

"Fine."

Beckett nodded, and then walked back to his desk. McKay took a few calming breaths and tried to relax and ignore the sting of his skin.

"You just need to learn to duck," Ronon's voice rumbled from behind a curtain.

"So I keep hearing," Sheppard's wry voice answered, and he heard a delicate chuckle from Teyla.

"Perhaps next time meditation will be somewhat easier to bear?" she said.

McKay froze, wondering what to do. His team was here, which meant someone – Sheppard, evidently – was hurt. He should go join them, say something nice, make sure the colonel was okay.

But they didn't know he was here, so he could just stay where he was. Except they had probably heard him talking with Beckett, which meant they knew he was here and might be waiting for him to come over.

Slowly, he slid from the exam table, glancing wistfully at the door, and made sure to keep his cold pack pressed to his hand while he walked around the curtain to the open area where Ronon and Teyla stood at Sheppard's either side. A woman doctor was sewing up an impressive gash on the colonel's forearm.

"Hey there, McKay," Sheppard said. "What'd you burn yourself on?"

"Coffee," he answered absently, riveted by the sight of Sheppard's torn flesh. "What happened to you?"

"I am afraid the colonel has still not mastered the art of not being there when a bantos rod is swung," Teyla said.

"It was a lucky shot," Sheppard said, sending a mock-challenge look in Teyla's direction. 

"Wait, what?" McKay demanded, beginning to quake with molten outrage as he stared at the woman in shock. "Are you telling me you hit him?!"

"Calm down, McKay. It was just an accident."

For the first time, McKay felt the chip in his brain. Or rather, he heard it, a blank sort of roar that was preventing him from moving, from thinking. He could feel his hot face, the cramp in his lungs, his knees threatening to give out.

And he could see nothing but the blood on the bandages, the ugly little stitches, the abhorrent rip of skin, the slit of raw, opened flesh.

"Dr. McKay?" some woman was asking from another room, or from down a well, or something.

He was going to puke, or faint, or kill someone. His eyes swiveling now, he saw his hands balled into fists, one of them aimed at a beautiful woman staring at him in concern. A large presence loomed between him and the woman, and McKay realized he'd have to kill them both, and –

_"McKay!"_ Sheppard shouted.

Rodney's ears were suddenly working again. And he got his eyes to look into Sheppard's face. He'd never seen eyes that color before.

"McKay, snap out of it!" the colonel ordered.

Rodney stepped back, tripped over the ice pack on the floor, and then turned and ran out as fast as he could.

***

Rodney McKay didn't really come back to who and where he was until he had been in his quarters for several minutes, cuddling Newton while Galileo lay curled in the curve of his leg.

He still couldn't stop thinking about what he had seen. A Guide had hurt her Sentinel. A Guide had knowingly, purposefully opened his skin, made him bleed.

He couldn't stop seeing that flesh, cut and ragged, wounded and exposed. John Sheppard was a treasure, a Sentinel of extraordinary power, though he had decided not to tap into it for reasons of his own. He was...without price. And the one person in the world designated to be his guardian, his servant, his keeper, his everything had raised a weapon and cut his skin.

McKay had read Sheppard's reports on the first eighteen months on Atlantis. He knew about the times the man had single-handedly saved the entire expedition. He knew about the day he had found Ronon, somehow managing to gentle the runner long enough to have Beckett cut out the transmitter, somehow making the man his own Little John, giving him a home and a purpose along with a place at his side.

Teyla. Teyla herself had been in great need, her people culled to within an inch of extermination before Sheppard somehow persuaded Everett and Weir to allow the few remaining survivors to shelter in Atlantis and then settle on the mainland.

He knew what Sheppard had done for Everett as well.

And she had cut him! Flayed him! Laid him open to disease and blood poisoning, and who knew what!

Newton mewled and cuddled closer, purring so loudly McKay finally lost track of his own heartbeat. Opening his eyes, he saw Pajamas standing on the desk, eyes alert to danger, fur raised.

It was none of his business. In fact, his entire behavior was perilously close to bond-interference. Sheppard could have him drawn up on charges, or something.

_At least then someone might take another look at this so-called bond he's got with Teyla._

McKay buried the thought as he sunk his fingers into Newton's fur. Teyla was John's choice. He respected that above all.

Newton squirmed suddenly, wanting to be let loose. With effort, he relaxed his arms, muttering, "I should have gotten a ragdoll."

Newton sent him a reproachful look, then leaped down from the bed to his food dish. Pajamas twitched.

Gathering himself, McKay lit some candles and dragged his pillow out from under the bed. Breathing deeply, he assumed the lotus position and sought to turn his mind clear and blue. 

No, make that green. As green as the sea before a coral atoll. As green as the floor of a rainforest, warm with life.

Naturally, just as his heart was steady and quiet, someone rang his door.

He noted with alarm that he knew who was on the other side of the door before he opened it, but hoped that was merely a brilliant deduction on his part, and not some fault with the crystal in his brain.

She stood as a statue of serenity. He sort of wanted to punch her in the face.

"Dr. McKay, if I might come in to speak with you?" Teyla asked.

He smiled as best he could and backed away from the door, checking to make sure no cats were ready to bolt into the corridor. They wouldn’t make it past the feline-only force field he had set up, of course, but it was a good sign of their training that none of them tried.

Teyla walked in, looking appreciatively at his cat harem. "What lovely animals!" she exclaimed as the door closed behind her. "I have never seen such before."

"There are no housecats in Pegasus?" McKay asked, frowning.

"No, indeed, there are." Teyla smiled and sat in his desk chair, turning it so that she faced him as he sat on the edge of his bed. Galileo jumped into his lap, content to be adored. "But they are larger and more feral."

McKay petted Galileo and said nothing.

"I have so often wondered what my world would be without the Wraith," Teyla said next. "Would we not have domesticated animals such as these?"

She looked down to Pajamas now, as she was rubbing her face over Teyla's ankles with some abandon, purring and demanding more skin.

McKay continued petting the Himalayan.

Teyla sighed. "You must please tell me how exactly I have offended you."

"Whatever arrangement you and Colonel Sheppard have between you is none of my affair," McKay said quickly.

"But you do not feel it is a healthy bond between myself and Colonel Sheppard?"

"Healthy?!" McKay felt hysteria in his words and watched Galileo leap to the floor. Traitor.

"I must confess that no one I have ever met amongst my travels in this galaxy, before meeting the people of Atlantis, has ever challenged my understanding of myself as thoroughly as –"

"Do you have to use thirty words for every one that will do?" McKay demanded, then clamped his jaw shut.

Teyla obviously calmed herself. "I do not quite understand your meaning."

"Oh yes, you do." McKay forced himself to look directly at the woman who could kill him with her hands tied behind her back. "You know exactly what you're doing."

"Dr. McKay, I don't –"

"You're making him behave. You're making him be a good little Sentinel," McKay told her. "You're a disgrace."

"Dr. McKay!"

"You have a _Sentinel_ in your care! Your Sentinel! You have the most precious, most valuable possession imaginable in your hands, completely vulnerable to you! Completely open!"

He saw John Sheppard then, the long length of him, the wiry muscle, the incredible strength of him. 

That was it, he thought. John Sheppard was the strongest person he had ever known. And that meant, of course, that he would be as strong against himself as he would against the world.

Couldn’t Teyla see that a man like Sheppard would need reassurance above all else? "Gentleness, tenderness, acceptance, unwavering loyalty. A Guide must care for their Sentinel beyond all else."

"I do care for John."

"You mean you love him."

Teyla nodded peacefully.

"No." Rodney stared at her while the crystal roared in his head. "No."

"Dr. McKay..."

"You're not his Guide."

Her chin came up.

"You're not a Guide at all."

"John has chosen to allow me to Guide him."

"What do you think a bond is? Being best friends?" He stood up then, moving randomly. "A Sentinel to a Guide is more than just the keeper of all that is best within ourselves. He is our child, our lover, our mentor, our champion, our student, our idol. He is whatever means love to us. His happiness, his care is our only concern. A Guide could no more injure her Sentinel than cut open the skin of the infant in her arms. She would literally die before she allowed anyone to injure him!"

Teyla frowned. "What you are describing is..."

McKay stopped pacing long enough to shoot her a look. "What? The ultimate in slavery? Being pathologically co-dependent?"

"I have seen many Sentinel/Guide pairs, and I have never seen –"

"What are you expecting? Sonnets and parades?" McKay scowled at Pajamas as she took an agitated lunge at his passing foot. "This is private, this – you have no idea how many years I had to study before I could talk like this, before I could describe what I was feeling without wanting to brain myself with a stick. And even then, we don't really talk about it. It just _is._ "

"And this is truly what you want?"

McKay turned to her, waving arms startled straight. "Me? I'm talking about Guides here." His hands went to his hips. "You know, the thing you're not?"

Teyla looked at him, eyebrows raised.

Rodney crossed his arms. "All right, if you have to make this about me, it's true that when I was a Guide, it was not just what I wanted, it's what I needed. And considering my incredible attractiveness as a Guide, I had so many Sentinels making offers that having to deny the hordes almost drove me insane!"

"John spoke to Ronon and me about your years alone."

”It was hardly just being alone!"

"So, if I might ask a question?"

"What? _Now_ you're worried about getting too personal?"

"Why did you not simply select a Sentinel?"

"For the love of...has it never once occurred to you to pick up a book? Or just ask one of the Guides on Atlantis about it?"

"John assured me there was no need."

"Well, big surprise here: he was lying."

Teyla stood suddenly, the first time he had seen her make any movement that wasn't perfectly controlled. She hovered, then walked to one of his windows. The spires of the city jutted up like a challenge, but she seemed to find the vista comforting.

"Look," he said. "What you've been doing with him, when you're not actually a Guide, it's very impressive."

"But it's not enough," she murmured.

"No. It's not, but I'm not suggesting, I mean, you can't just leave him or anything."

She turned to look at him, surprised.

Rodney shrugged helplessly. "You're what he's using now, and he's obviously given up looking for his real Guide, and he's functioning well, or, at least, he's functioning. It's not remotely what he could do, of course, but you can't take that away from him."

Her smile was unexpectedly fond. "You care about John."

"Well, he's the military commander and we're dealing with aliens that want to eat us, so, yeah. Everyone on the base should care about him."

"But if you were still a Guide, would you offer for him?"

"It doesn’t work like that!"

"I don't understand."

McKay cut himself off before he pointed out that her lack of understanding was the whole problem. Looking away from her, he rubbed his eyes, feeling incredibly tired, then went to his personal laptop. 

"I'm going to give you some literature. Stuff Guides read when we're kids. Then we can move on to more advanced stuff." He turned, flash drive in hand. "I mean, if that's okay?"

Teyla walked to him in obvious relief to take the drive with careful hands. "I would be so grateful for whatever you feel I could use."

"What you could use is..." McKay forced himself to swallow the words down, though they burned like acid in his stomach. "Just...just don't ever hurt him again, all right? It doesn't matter if he says it's okay."

"As you wish, Dr...May I call you Rodney?"

"Uh, sure."

She folded the flash drive against her chest like a talisman. "And may I ask you to answer my personal question?"

"What? Oh, why I didn't just choose some Sentinel?"

She nodded.

"Because there is no choice in the matter. It just happens or it doesn't."

"So if you had been...as you were when Kaleig approached you at the mixer?"

"Well, I would have had sex with her, I mean, if she wanted, but unless she were the one, the bond wouldn't take."

She watched him for a moment, and he could see when they penny dropped. He thought for a moment of all those times he had woken up in some strange bed facing a disappointed Sentinel who was trying to figure out the politest way to ask him to leave.

"I cannot thank you enough, Rodney," she said, looking down at the drive before she put it in her pocket. Then she put her hands up on his shoulders and bowed her head. Slowly, he pressed his head against hers, then straightened with a jerk.

"Just read," he said, walking back and looking at the door. "And, you know, I'm here."

She nodded with beauty and walked out.

McKay stood quietly for a few minutes, swaying slightly with exhaustion. He remembered his hand hurt.

"Well," he managed finally. "Is anybody hungry?"

***

_The mental health of a Sentinel or Guide is greatly imperiled by a number of factors, not all of which are internal. Most western societies stress the need for self-sufficiency in "normal" individuals. Young men and women who feel they cannot be complete without the partnership of another are warned this is a sign of incomplete development and are guided towards methods of personal growth._

_A Sentinel or Guide, however, must embrace and accept their incomplete natures. Though it is true that many never bond, it is vital that they recognize that their desire for a bond will never fade. Instead, such Guides and Sentinels have reported a high rate of success in envisioning the desire as a sort of entity itself. "Thomas," for example, describes his efforts to think of the desire for a partner as a sort of companion:_

_After I turned fifty, I realized the odds of my still finding a Guide were too slim to motivate me to continue actively searching. My wife and I were expecting our first grandchild and were looking forward to an extended vacation when I realized that the emptiness inside me had provided a constant source of inspiration in my life._

_When I thought of my desire to be paired, for the first time, it felt less like a hopeless search and more like a noble pursuit, a sort of "impossible dream" that had guided me to all that was best in my life. It was a dream I knew I did not want to lose. (Ritcher & Pardo 1988)_

_Of course, for some who desire to bond, particularly Guides, the denial of bonding becomes more than they can handle alone, however healthy and positive their attitude. Chapter 14 will discuss bond-denial trauma in detail._

"Watchya reading?" John asked, sitting next to Teyla with his breakfast tray.

"Something I should have read two years ago," she said, then reminded herself not to sound accusing while Sheppard peered at her tablet.

She watched his face go blank.

"I told you that you didn't need to bother with any of that."

"And I appreciate that, John. But I am very grateful to Rodney for this opportunity to learn more about Sentinels and Guides so that I may better fulfill my role."

Sheppard rolled his eyes. "See, this is just what I'm talking about. You fulfill your role just fine, in my opinion, and my opinion is the one that matters."

"Then perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I desire this for me. I admit to being quite curious for more information on this subject."

Sheppard scowled at his eggs.

"What's that?" Ronon asked as he swung down into his chair while his tray hit the table with a thud.

"I am reading what I understand to be the texts young Sentinels and Guides read on Earth. They are extremely enlightening."

"Anything in there about sense spikes?"

"Yes, and on helping to bring Sentinels out of zone outs. I believe several of the techniques suggested may be of assistance."

Shoulders curling, Sheppard shoved hash browns into his mouth.

"I should read those books too," Ronon grunted.

"There's really no need, guys," John whined.

"Makes sense to know more stuff."

"I agree." She looked up at Dr. McKay's approach and smiled. "Rodney."

McKay was looking at Ronon's tray and then back at his own. "Can you tell if there's any citrus in the French toast?"

"French toast doesn't usually come with citrus, Rodney," Sheppard drawled.

"You never know with military chefs," McKay said, peering at his potential tray of death.

"Nutmeg, cinnamon, eggs, milk, whole wheat bread, salt," Ronon said.

"Ah, good," McKay said with a happy smile, sitting down across from Teyla. "I love French Toast." Then he downed half his coffee in one gulp.

"You left out the honey," Sheppard said.

Everyone looked at him, then at his conspicuously French toast-free tray.

"I can smell the honey," he mumbled.

Teyla smiled. "That is very impressive, John," she enthused.

Sheppard scowled at her.

"So, I'm kind of new to all this team stuff," McKay said. "Can we talk about today's mission, or do we have to have Dr. Weir here?"

"It's our third trip to the Genii," Sheppard said. "We trade for tava beans."

"They taste any good?"

"They're all right, but now we're back in contact with Earth, we use them mostly as currency."

"They are easy to prepare and highly nutritious," Teyla said.

"Unless you burn them," Ronon said, shooting her a look.

Teyla calmly pulled her tablet closer.

"What about the Genii?" McKay asked.

"Well, I wouldn't invite them to any parties," Sheppard told him, "especially since the last two times we've gone they made us go to their harvest festival."

"Not that good?"

"Think of an Amish wake, but without the laughs."

"And they're going to want us to go to another one?"

"Probably."

"You know, I have a very important simulation running. I could always –"

"Not a chance, McKay."

"I look forward to seeing my friend Sora," Teyla said, sipping at her Athosian tea. "The time for her wedding to Ofprin is approaching."

Ronon grunted into his eggs, drawing McKay's gaze.

Ronon gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Cowen's hiding something."

"Cowen?"

Sheppard nodded grudgingly. "The leader. There's definitely something off about him. And they tend to herd us from one place to another, like they don't want us wandering off."

"Secret naquada mine?" McKay suggested, finishing off his toast with a sigh of pleasure. "Ninja hit squad?"

"Camouflaged poppy fields," Sheppard agreed. 

"Meth lab."

"Maybe they're all just Free Masons."

"So we should look at their money for the map to their secret treasure?"

"I believe they are merely a private and cautious people," Teyla said.

Ronon snorted.

"Whatever," Sheppard said, standing up with his tray. "We have a go in ninety minutes." After a brief touch to Teyla's shoulder, he walked off.

Teyla waited a moment, then said softly, "Rodney."

McKay turned from look at the mess door with raised eyebrows. 

"I wish to thank you again for your help and to ask if it is all right if Ronon read these texts as well."

"They're public books. If you think it's a good idea." He looked at Ronon, who was staring at the last piece of bacon on McKay's tray.

"You gonna eat that?"

***

Sheppard checked the chamber on his sidearm, then the safety, then slid the weapon into his thigh holster. He felt really on point today, which was good. He agreed with Ronon that the Genii weren't being honest with them, though there was no question that the tava beans were valuable, and it was nice to see Teyla relax a little with her friend.

_At least it will get her away from her homework,_ he thought, still less than pleased that McKay had taken it upon himself to put her through Guide School 101. He could kind of see what she was saying about knowing more about the way she helped him, but, damnit, he'd never functioned this well in his life. McKay better not screw it up.

Speak of the devil, he thought a moment later as McKay entered the locker room with a nod and crossed over to the rack of tac vests. While Sheppard double-tied his boots, McKay went through a little ritual of patting down his pockets, and Sheppard could almost hear the checklist in his head: laptop, powerbars, life signs detector, penknife, something, sunscreen.

"What was that?" Sheppard asked him, pointing at the one pocket he didn't catch.

"Huh? Oh, my Epipen," McKay said, deftly reaching in to pull out what looked like a giant Magic Marker. 

"For citrus?"

"Citrus, beestings, whatever my body decides it doesn't like." McKay shrugged, but his unease was obvious. "I've been in anaphylactic shock four times now. Never leave home without it."

Sheppard frowned, then tapped his radio. "Sheppard to Dr. Weir."

_"Dr. Weir here."_

"I'm postponing the mission half an hour."

_"Is there a problem?"_

"No, just need a little more intel before we leave." He tapped his radio again. "Teyla, Ronon meet me and McKay in Dr. Beckett's office."

"What's up?" McKay asked.

John looked at him, vaguely irritated the man had to ask. In answer, he reached up and yanked on the front of McKay's vest. 

"Come on, Rodney."

Teyla and Ronon were already there when they got to the Infirmary, Dr. Beckett standing beside them.

"Is there some trouble with Rodney, Colonel?" Beckett asked.

"No." Sheppard settled into his stance, arms crossed. "But the team needs Epipens and a lesson on how to use them."

"Ach, you're right," Carson said, looking abashed. "I should have thought of that."

Sheppard's expression made it clear he agreed.

Clearing his throat, and with a look that encompassed the whole group, he explained, "It's important to understand the difference between a simple allergic reaction, which may result in an itchy rash or sneezing, and anaphylaxis, which is an acute multi-system hypersensitivity reaction that can be fatal if not treated. Rodney's previous reactions to citrus and bee venom have shown that he is susceptible to biphasic reactions, meaning a secondary reaction within seventy-two hours of exposure even after treatment, and that in addition to respiratory distress, due to the presence of histamine-releasing cells in the heart, he may also suffer coronary artery spasms and even myocardial infarction or dysrhythmia."

"That's a heart attack, right?" Ronon asked.

"Right. At the first appearance of any symptoms, which may be anything from sneezing, itching, hives, a rash, shortness of breath –"

"Jeeze, McKay, how can you tell when you're not having a reaction?" Sheppard wondered.

"Oh, ha ha."

"Shortness of breath," Beckett emphasized with a mild glare, "and irregular heartbeat. Treatment in the field, fortunately, is simple." The doctor held up an Epipen and mimed jabbing Ronon in the thigh with it. Ronon didn't flinch, though one eyebrow got a little high.

"The usual dose is 500 µg. There are several doses in each pen. The adrenaline, which promotes air and blood flow, should be re-administered on the way back to the Infirmary at five-minute intervals, unless the patient's heart rate is too rapid."

"How would we determine that?" Sheppard asked.

"I'll let you know," McKay said. "I'm familiar with the feeling of having had enough."

"And if Dr. McKay falls unconscious?" Teyla asked.

"Get him on oxygen and get him home."

"Don't they have treatments for this kind of thing?" Sheppard asked. "Desensitization?"

"Aye, but Rodney here hasn't wanted to risk exposure."

"You should do it," Sheppard growled, looking at his team scientist.

"Okay, okay," McKay said, hands up and moving. "We all get the point. Don't we have a mission?"

Beckett passed out a pen to Ronon, Sheppard, and Teyla. "Remember, as much as he'll complain about the effects, an unnecessary shot of epinephrine is nothing compared to his not getting one when he needs it."

Sheppard moved his back-up knife to the empty pocket on his right pant leg, then took his pen and tucked it in the vacated front pocket. His body adjusted to the shifted weights, and once again he felt on point and mission-ready.

"All right, let's get to the Genii before the festival's over."

Chuck nodded to Sheppard as his team walked into the gate room. He nodded back, feeling grounded, and called for gate activation. A few chevrons, a big damn whoosh, and they walked through.

The Genii home world looked that same as ever, green and lush and --

"What the hell?!"

Sheppard found himself on his knees, choking on the stench, shivering from the wrong, wrong, wrongness of the air, reaching for his weapon with no clue what he was supposed to be shooting at. The threat was everywhere, even under his skin.

"Teyla to Atlantis! Something is wrong with Colonel Sheppard!"

He was pretty sure the wormhole cut out, then someone dialed it back, and he was through and green and stretched out until he was on the floor of the gate room, safe.

Or safer, at least.

"Decon for the whole team," he ground out, getting his legs under him. 

"Colonel Sheppard," he heard Weir's voice say.

"Now," he ordered, getting his head up to see everyone staring at him. "Right now."

"Clear the corridor," Weird barked, stepping away.

Ronon tried to bring up the rear, but John stared at him until he walked with Teyla and McKay to the decon chamber. Sheppard made sure no one followed them.

They reached the alcove off the gate room on the way to the Infirmary and turned right. Without another word, each of them went into a cubicle and shed weapons and clothes in a pile that went into the chute. Sheppard heard McKay whimper at the loss of his laptop. He wondered if Ronon truly let go of all his knives.

After that, each went further into the cubicle, standing with arms outstretched as the decontamination beam swept up, down, up, down, until, slowly, Sheppard's sense of urgency faded.

Later, after the shower and putting on paper scrubs, he rejoined his team in the locker room. He expected questions and demands, but McKay was already reading the results of Atlantis' scans off an Ancient view screen.

"We were being impacted by low-level radiation," McKay said as John set foot into the room. "The kind that makes you sterile or screws up your children with three heads."

Teyla and Ronon looked a little green. 

"How bad was our exposure?" Sheppard asked.

"Minimal." McKay input a command on the panel below the screen, and the images of their body scans appeared. "And we're clean. But a few weeks of that level of exposure would require treatment."

"We must warn the Genii," Teyla urged. 

"Warn them?" McKay asked.

"They are our allies! It is our responsibility –"

"No, no. I mean –" McKay waved his hands. "Of course, we would have to warn them, except there's no way they don't already know." He turned to John. "The type of radiation exposure we're talking about here isn't from a natural source. The scans detected the evidence of uranium-238, which is what you have left over after you enrich uranium-235 through isotope separation. We had to have been standing near some sort of disposal site."

"You're saying the Genii have nuclear technology."

"Yes."

"The farmers."

"Well, I doubt they're actually using farmers. Although they might as well be, since they're not that good at it, or they'd do a better job shielding their stockpiles of depleted uranium. I mean, at these levels, they're committing mass suicide." 

"I do not understand," Teyla said. "The Genii have long been friends with my people. I have seen no signs of sickness in our last visits."

"Which means they can't have been enriching uranium for that long," Sheppard said.

"No, not and still have healthy farmers to trade tava beans." McKay saw the look of confusion still not fade from Teyla's face. "Look, put it all together. They're nowhere near making a reactor for nuclear power, and they're rushing the technology so fast they're not taking even the minimum precautions. They're making a bomb."

"A bomb?" she asked.

"A very big bomb. I mean, the bomb to end all bombs."

"The Wraith," Ronon said.

"Exactly. The farming community keeps the Wraith from looking too closely at the planet, and, in particular I'm guessing, at what would have to be an extensive underground atomic bomb lab."

"What's an atomic bomb?" Ronon asked.

"It's the reaction you get from the fission –"

"Imagine a bomb as big as a table that can blow up a whole city in one go," Sheppard interrupted.

"Or a hive ship." Ronon looked impressed.

An hour later in Weir's office, Sheppard ran through their theory, with occasional color commentary from McKay. Weir thought it over, and then reminded them all of her day job by making the next leap.

"Yet they have not approached us to form an alliance. Is it because their lifestyle requires paranoia, or do they still not appreciate our level of technology?"

"They've seen the jumpers," Sheppard said. "And they've been trying to trade for C-4."

"How do they know about our C-4?" McKay asked.

Sheppard shrugged, eyes on the ceiling. "We cleared a couple fields for them."

"Don't they have shovels for that?"

"Why would they want plastic explosive when they're working on an atom bomb?" Weir asked.

"I'd guess to solve their supercriticality problem," McKay told her.

"Naturally," Sheppard said.

"The Genii must have been hiding their technology from the Wraith for generations," Teyla said. "The people of Atlantis are strangers to them. Perhaps in time they will approach us honestly."

"They must be having fatalities," McKay said. "They're rushing against the clock, killing themselves to make a weapon. If their only goal were destroying the Wraith, they should have jumped at the chance to further their research."

"Who knows what sort of internal political situation we're dealing with here?" Weir agreed. "The real question concerns how we proceed from here."

"Well, we never visit their planet again, to start with," McKay said.

"We have to help them," Teyla insisted. "They are killing themselves unnecessarily.

"Which, in all likelihood, they well know," McKay told her. 

"So they'd rather die than ask for help," Weir mused. 

"Which means they may not care who else they have to kill to keep their secret," Ronon said.

"I have known nothing but hospitality and friendship from the Genii," Teyla protested.

"And I appreciate that, Teyla. I do." Weir smiled gently. "But if they are so committed to this course of action, we cannot expect them to react well if their secret is exposed. Particularly as we would be in no position to assist them with their work."

"We wouldn't?" McKay asked.

"You saying you could build their bomb for them?" Sheppard asked.

"Oh, please. If I hadn't been born a Guide, I probably could have made an atom bomb in my parents' garage."

"We do not know the Genii – the real Genii – well enough to agree to arm them with nuclear weapons," Weir said. "But perhaps we could help them in some other way." She thought for a moment. "Dr. McKay, could we possibly assist them without tipping our hand?"

"What, leave bomb schematics lying around some marketplace?"

"I was thinking about their poor shielding."

McKay scowled at her, then at his tablet, which he pulled close. The others let him work in silence.

"Lead is a common metal on Earth, and in the Milky Way in general, but according to our surveys, it's rare in Pegasus. They're probably using concrete for the most part, and too thinly. We could perhaps point them at a lead mine or two."

"Lead is best?" Teyla asked.

"Until they invent Graded-Z shielding, which probably won't be anytime soon. A ha!" He pointed at his tablet in triumph. "A geological survey of PXJ-328 found heavy underground concentrations of galena, an easy source of lead."

"We were considering that for an alpha site," Sheppard said. "Decided against it when the stargate froze solid in the winter."

"Will they realize the value of lead for shielding if they have enough?" Weir asked.

"They should. I mean, they must be using it for shielding for some things already, or they'd all be dead by now."

"So it's a matter of getting them the gate address," Weir said.

"I will do it," Teyla said.

"No one is going back there," John told her. "Especially not you."

"John, they are my friends."

"They've been pretending to be your friends while they've been exposing you to radiation!"

"Perhaps Teyla could meet with them somewhere other than on Genii," McKay suggested quickly. "They're well known at the major markets, right?"

"I could make it seem like a chance meeting," Teyla said. "I could invite myself to dinner with their trading party. They would doubtlessly be eager to learn more about Atlantis."

"And once you're all friendly, you can talk about mining lead PXJ-328," McKay said.

"Which we have decided against because it is too much trouble for something we do not really need." Teyla turned imploringly to Sheppard. "Lead is not of much value for trade, as it is so heavy. Those who have the ability to trade with it would rather use gold, silver, or naquadah. I could even offer the Genii delegation the gate address to PXJ-328 if they will pay for my dinner."

Sheppard mulled it over with a frown. "The Genii have to know other Athosians than you. Let's get someone else to do it."

"John, I will be fine."

"You will," Ronon said. "Because we'll be watching your back."

Weir smiled in relief, obviously uncomfortable watching a Sentinel and Guide disagree in public. "Excellent. There's no reason you can't all go."

Sheppard kept frowning, but slowly nodded.

"Next week, the Cestic marketplace should be quite busy for the Festival of Ces the Younger," Teyla said. "I believe we were going to be sending a team there already."

"We are," Weir said.

"All right. Fine." Sheppard stood up. "I'll let Ford know we're going to be tagging along with him and his anthropologists."

"Excellent," Weir repeated, looking down at her tablet.

"McKay?"

Rodney looked up from the readout of the city's power consumption on his tablet screen. "What?"

"I want to talk to you for a moment." John jerked his head towards the door leading away from the control room, then waited for the scientist to proceed him before steering McKay down the corridor to a storage room. Once they were inside, he let the door close behind them.

"Colonel?" McKay asked uncertainly, looking at the storm clouds gathering over the man's head.

"I've been on the Genii home world four times with no trouble, McKay. I thought their biggest weapon was a pitchfork. Now I walk through the gate, and I'm three steps away from dying from the smell of the place."

"Well, maybe the uranium –"

"The uranium isn't the issue, Rodney! I am. Just what the hell did you do to me?"

"What – what are you talking about? I didn't do anything to you!"

"I'm coming fully online, Rodney, and, Rodney, I'm about to crawl out of my skin! I can't breathe without knowing what everyone on Atlantis had for lunch, my clothes itch, and I'm hearing conversations from across the hall."

"You're a Sentinel! That's supposed to be normal for you!"

"Normal? I haven't had this junk to deal with since I was a kid!"

McKay stared at him.

"So help me, McKay, if you've done something to screw with my head..."

"I owe Teyla an apology," McKay said quietly.

"Teyla?"

McKay tilted his head slightly. "Come with me, Colonel."

Fuming, Sheppard followed the scientist without a word. McKay got on the radio and asked Teyla and Ronon to join them in the Infirmary.

"Rodney, Colonel," Beckett greeted them. McKay nodded and went directly to the ancient scanner, and then laid himself out on the bed.

"Rodney?" Beckett asked.

"The colonel seems to think I'm malfunctioning." McKay pointed to his forehead.

"Ach," Beckett tutted as Ronon and Teyla entered the Infirmary. He went to the scanner's control panel and directed the device to the crystal in McKay's cerebrum.

While the others gathered behind the doctor, Beckett pointed to the clear display of a small, solid white light deep in McKay's brain. "The inhibitor crystal is performing perfectly, Colonel. You can see here, here, and here." He pointed to three small black areas. "There's no communication between his empathy centers and his endocrine system. It's impossible for him to be releasing bonding hormones or for his Guide instincts to be regulating his serotonin levels."

"Then why does he smell like sunlight?"

Beckett's mouth dropped open, and the whole Infirmary grew silent. John supposed he'd just put a dent in his cool, but he didn't really care. Right now he needed information, and, damnit, McKay did smell like sunlight.

"Well, ordinarily, I'd say your description of Rodney's...person was a sign of compatibility." Beckett looked pointedly at the scan results then at McKay, who was now sitting on the bed in a lotus position, hands on his knees. "But considering the circumstances, I'd say another answer is more likely."

Sheppard waited for the man to get on with it. Teyla, he saw, was staring at the Ancient view screen with a firmly serene expression. Ronon had also retreated behind an expressionless face. John was fairly certain his own anger was clear to everyone in the room.

"I know you don't like to discuss this, so I'll keep it brief, Colonel. You are a Sentinel of extraordinary power, which you don't use. Dr. McKay is a Guide of extraordinary power, which he's had surgically deactivated. For reasons of your own, you have purposefully neglected an enormous portion of your own psyche since you were a child. It may be that the Sentinel inside you has simply had enough."

For a brief moment, half a breath, Sheppard allowed himself the luxury of considering just walking away. By any interpretation of Sentinel etiquette, Beckett was completely out of line. He could walk out now, and no one would stop him. He could just leave.

_You could walk all the way back to Earth and hide under your bed, John,_ Sheppard told himself. _Go on disability and grow a nice beer gut. Spend your life scratching your ass._

"So you're saying I'm the one interfering with my bond with Teyla, not McKay," he growled, wishing his voice didn't do that when he got pissed off.

Beckett took a step back. "Colonel, please." The deference was obviously masking a deep desire to spill his guts.

"What is it you want to say?"

The doctor regarded him blankly, then turned to address the other doctors and nurses tending to business in the Infirmary.

"May we have the room for a moment?"

Sheppard couldn't help feeling amusement as everyone but Beckett and his team scurried out in obvious relief. But he wasn't smiling as the doctor turned back around.

"Colonel Sheppard, you're not bonded to Teyla, and no one who knows anything about Sentinels and Guides would think for two seconds that you were. Our lovely friend centers you, allows you to function, takes care of you when you need it, and I've noticed Ronon here helps as well, but that's as far as it goes. Elizabeth and the others believe you have what you need because it's convenient for them." Beckett settled his shoulders, his blue eyes dark with determination.

"Now, this may come as a shock to you, Colonel, but over the past two years I've come to think of you as my friend, and I've gotten to know you well enough to know you'd tell the whole world you're fine with your arms and legs chopped off. But you not only deserve more than you're giving yourself, you need more. And whether you like it or not, you're going to find some way to get it."

"Sorry to make this all about me," McKay voice drifted wryly from his poised perch on the bed. "But from the way the conversation is going, it seems I need to remind everyone I'm not what any Sentinel needs right now."

Sheppard turned to look at the man, surprised to find himself considering the issue. McKay seemed to read his expression and waved his hands.

"If I smell like sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows to you right now, Sheppard, it has nothing to do with bonding because I can't bond. Moreover, and no offense, but I don't want to. I gave up that part of my life to get here to Atlantis, and I haven't regretted it for a moment."

"You disagree with my diagnosis then, Rodney?"

"No, actually. I think you're right that he's in need of a true Guide. It's just not going to be me."

"You might wait until you're asked, McKay," John drawled.

"I'm just making sure we all know where we stand." The scientist got off the bed and walked over to his scan results, looking them over with a satisfied nod. He turned to the doctor. "Carson, Teyla's been doing a good job, a great job, considering. Sheppard should keep relying on her and Ronon and whoever else he needs while he looks for his Guide."

"Where am I going, exactly? Guides R Us?"

McKay looked slightly scandalized. "That discount meat market? Of course not. I'm not even suggesting you go back to Earth. There are several unbonded Guides on this city. Look me in the eye and tell me you've bothered to give any of them so much as a sniff."

Caught between the subject matter and the sensation of McKay's non-Guide wrongness, Sheppard couldn't help moving his shoulders in discomfort. McKay frowned at him.

"If, as you say, I'm being helpful," Teyla said, "then I would suggest what John needs now is some time to reflect on the matter."

McKay shrugged. "You'd know best. And I'll take that as a cue to get back to my lab?"

It took a beat for Sheppard to realize the man was asking his permission and to give him a nod. Rodney clapped his hands together and walked out.

"Colonel," Beckett said, drawing his attention back to his solemn face. "I meant no disrespect."

"Just doing your job, Doc." Sheppard patted him on the shoulder, smiled reassuringly at Teyla, and met Ronon's unflinching eyes before following McKay's path out the door.

"Sheppard," he heard Ronon say before he's taken more than a few steps down the corridor. "Wait up."

John turned, looking up at the man curiously.

"If you find your real Guide, you'll be a better Sentinel, right?"

"So they say."

"That will make you a better weapon against the Wraith."

John grinned. Trust Ronon to keep the important things in mind.

***

Rodney settled onto his lab stool with a low frission of pleasure, breathing in the dry, static-filled air of so many computers in one place. Beckett had done well to get all that out in the open, and with his real Guide at his side, Sheppard would stop being so distracting. As much fun as it was running around with Sheppard's team, this is what he had come to Atlantis for: ground-breaking research.

The Ancients had their problems, including their massive egos and generally giving up on life to be glowing squids, but their science was beautiful.

Currently, McKay was splitting his time between developing a protocol to retrieve recently dialed gate addresses from a DHD, reconfiguring power input from their naquadah generators to take some of the strain off their single ZPM whenever they dialed Earth or raised the shield, and reading through the new project proposals Zelenka had deemed worthy to forward to him.

The hours passed quickly.

A noise made him look to the open door of the lab, where Sheppard was leaning with his shoulder against the frame in a somewhat insolent, completely sexy way. Damn the man.

"Something I can do for you, Colonel?" he asked, not masking his impatience. A glance at his computer confirmed it was after midnight, well past time for all good military commanders to be in bed.

"Yes." Sheppard walked, no, that was definitely stalking, towards him, leaned over to put his elbows on the lab table, and gave him a decidedly deep look into his eyes. "You can take that crystal out of your head."

McKay snorted, leaning back on his stool and crossing his arms over his chest.

"I'm fairly certain we already had this conversation. I'm off the market, Sheppard."

"It wouldn't kill you to call me John, you know." The colonel shot him a harmless look that McKay didn't buy for a minute.

"I'm not too sure about that," McKay muttered, scowling when Sheppard looked pleased. "Did you just decide to stop hearing when I said I wasn't interested in bonding?"

"All Guides want to bond."

"That's nonsense, and you know it. Besides, hello? Not a Guide here."

"You will be without that thing in your brain."

"I like that thing in my brain, and as Carson so ably demonstrated, it's working perfectly, and what are you doing?!"

Sheppard leaned back from his unmistakably luxurious sniff at McKay's skin. "Morning sunlight," he said with a grin. "The kind I bet your cats like to stretch out and sleep in."

McKay snapped his laptop shut. "All right, that's enough." He stood, hands at his hips, thrusting his chin out. "My whole life I've had to deal with Sentinels like you treating me like some sort of fringe benefit God gave them at birth. Well, screw that. I like not having to feel other people's pain and stupidity twenty-four hours a day. I like being able to speak my mind without feeling guilty. I like my life, and I'm not putting it at risk for the statistically infinitesimal chance I'm compatible with some flyboy sporting permanent bedhead."

Sheppard had slowly straightened to look directly into McKay's eyes.

"You're saying you're not even remotely interested?"

"Ah, seven was the magic number. But I can say it an eighth time if you like. Not. Remotely. Interested."

"Hmm." Sheppard deliberately raised his right hand until McKay looked at it, then reached over and rested the very tips of his fingers against the outline of a pertly pointed nipple.

"What are you..."

Very slowly, oh-so-delicately, Sheppard rubbed the pad of his thumb over the hardened nub, back and forth. McKay started to tremble on the third repetition.

"I want you to stop that."

"Then step away." Sheppard gazed at the motion of his hand, a small smile of pleasure on his full, delicious-looking lips.

"This...this proves nothing."

A dark eyebrow rose up. "No?"

"No. I haven't had sex with another person in over ten years. A dog could...oh...could hump my leg, and I'd get excited."

Sheppard leered at him openly, refusing to be insulted. Then, just as with that woman – Kraken? – at the mixer, Sentinel eyes flinched in displeasure. Unlike her, though, Sheppard didn't pull away.

"I can feel it in your head," he growled. "Like something broken. It's wrong." He gave the nipple a gentle pinch, and McKay went cross-eyed. "I want you to take it out."

With a strength outside himself, McKay took a step back.

"I don't want this," he said while his erection hurt. "I don't have to want this."

Sheppard lowered his hand, saying nothing. Nothing verbal, in any event. His eyes were saying plenty.

Unsteady but determined, McKay picked up his laptop and walked to the door regardless of the stiffness tenting his uniform. He hoped nobody saw him before he reached the transporter.

"At least think about it, Rodney," Sheppard's quiet voice reached him.

Rodney turned, looking back. "I have thought about it, Colonel, all my life. I'm finally free, don't you see that? I'm finally someone I've always wanted to be."

"Is that what your first doctorate was all about? Being free?"

"I had no choice, so I embraced being a Guide. All it gave me in return was psychosis."

"Now you do have a choice," Sheppard said, his voice soft as silk and twice as slippery. "You could choose me."

"It doesn't work like that, and I'm not going to take the chance." McKay firmed his grip on his laptop and made his voice as hard as he could. "I'm not going through all that again."

Sheppard said nothing this time as he turned and left. Thankfully, there was no one else in the corridor.

***

"Ambassador Halling."

"Dr. Weir?" The tall, bearded man with his kind eyes and dark robes hesitated in the doorway to her office, displaying his usual blend of deference and strength. "A matter of some concern and urgency has arisen that we need to discuss."

She stood, gesturing to a chair. "Please, come in."

He sat, settling a brown leather satchel in his lap. "As you know, an Athosian trading party returned through the gate early this morning. Pela and Slocol came directly to me, knowing you needed to learn what they had discovered."

She nodded. Teyla had given up her position as leader of her people to Guide Sheppard, and from what she could tell Halling was doing an admirable job in her place. She watched as he took several large black and white photos from his satchel and spread them across her desk.

The first picture was of Sheppard's team standing at a stargate, the wormhole still active behind them. The others were each a close-up of a team member's face. Sheppard seemed to be squinting, Ronon glowering, Teyla vaguely smiling, McKay looking ready to sneeze.

"What is this writing?" she asked, pointing to words that seemed to be written in several languages.

"They offer a reward for the capture of the people in the pictures."

"Are Pela and Slocol here on the city?"

"Yes, I brought them with me."

"Thank you." She tapped her radio. "Colonel Sheppard, Teyla Emmagan, Ronon Dex, and Dr. McKay, please meet me in the conference room immediately."

_"What's going on, Dr. Weir?"_ Sheppard asked.

"Please, let me explain when we're all together."

_"Can I send Zelenka?"_ McKay complained. _"I'm right in the middle –"_

"I need you, and this can't wait."

_"Ronon and I are on our way, Elizabeth."_

Weir saw the way Halling's eyes grew even more solemn at the sound of Teyla's voice. She knew he must miss his former leader. As she stood to escort him to the conference room, she worried again that John's choice of Guide might seem like the worst form of ransom to the Athosians – Teyla's service in return for the small number of her people they had saved from the Wraith. When she had inquired about it before, however, Halling had assured her that, while the Athosians knew little of the ways of Guides and Sentinels, their value was understood by his people.

Oddly, Sheppard was the last to arrive in the conference room, stepping through the door just as Slocol and Pela were settling at the table on either side of Halling. To Weir's further surprise, he took the chair right next to McKay, rather than the one by his Guide.

"It is good to see you, Teyla," Halling was saying.

"And to see you as well, Halling," she replied with great warmth.

"Charin sends her best wishes for your health," Halling continued. "As does Kanaan."

Teyla's smile faltered for just a moment then returned to its serene affection. "Please tell them both that my thoughts are often of them."

"Would that our business here could remain so pleasant," Halling said, turning his attention to Sheppard. Briefly, he explained what Pela and Slocol had found as Weir passed the photographs around.

"This is the Genii gate," the colonel said. "They must have security cameras on it."

"Why can I never take a good picture?" McKay sighed.

"So they saw you react and figured out you're a Sentinel," Ronon said.

"And instead of actually trying to talk with us about it, they've put out a hit," Rodney said.

"A hit?" Teyla asked.

"A death contract," Sheppard said, peering at the picture of the whole team. "Except they don't want us dead, right?" He turned to Slocol. "This says we need to be alive?"

"Yes," Slocol said, his voice angry. "Though it is clear they do not care if you are harmed by your capture."

His wife fingered one of her long brown braids, which jingled with tiny bells. "The entire marketplace was full of these pictures, and the sum of money offered is considerable."

"So much for leading them to a source of lead. Oh, my God!" McKay grabbed at one of the pictures, peering at the words as though will alone would make sense of them. "Is there some sort of expiration date on these things? Are we going to be chased by bounty hunters for the rest of our lives?"

Sheppard actually placed his hand on McKay's shoulder to calm the man. But McKay shrugged it off and leaned slightly away. Elizabeth looked at Teyla, whose face showed only concern as she looked at the photos.

"The instructions on many of the pictures say to deliver you to a specific gate address in three days' time," Pela said.

"Three days?" Ronon rumbled dangerously.

"I suppose they thought any longer would give you too much time to discover the photos yourselves," Weir said.

"The day after tomorrow we're scheduled to visit the Menarians," Sheppard said.

"There is Menarian writing on this photo," Pela said. "And on this one too."

"Perfect. One of the few allies I thought we actually had in this galaxy."

"If they were officially allied with the Genii, there would be no need for these pictures," Teyla said. "Perhaps they are simply hoping someone there can be corrupted." She looked at Sheppard pleadingly. "They must be quite desperate, John."

"Which makes them all the more dangerous."

"Look, our cover's blown," McKay said. "They know, and we know that they know. And soon they'll figure we know they know."

"Which means?" Sheppard asked.

"Which means there is no longer any point in pretending," Teyla said. "We can just give them the gate address to PXJ-328 directly."

"Oh, sure," McKay scoffed. "We'll just toss the address through the gate, and they won't be suspicious at all."

"I like that," Sheppard muttered.

"Like what, Colonel?" Weir asked.

"I like the idea of tossing help through the gate. But we can do better than a gate address." He shot McKay a look.

"Even for us, it's going to be a lot of work to mine enough lead for their needs," the scientist said, pulling his tablet close. 

"Could we use the _Daedalus_? It's supposed to be here next week."

"What, beam the galena out directly?" McKay frowned, then typed quickly on his tablet, brain already in gear.

"Dr. Weir, I do not understand," Halling said. "These people betray you, yet you wish to help them?"

"We have discovered the Genii could be of specific use against the Wraith," she explained. "And I would ask you, all of you, to keep that information secret." 

"The Genii are farmers," Slocol said.

"Yes, but there is something about their planet, something that we would like to utilize."

"If it could be used against the Wraith," Halling said, "they are wise to keep the knowledge from others."

"Yes," Teyla said, and just a touch of command entered her voice as she continued. "The safety of the Genii rests on their ability to go unnoticed, to seem ordinary. We must protect that at all costs."

"Understood." Slocol and Pela nodded.

McKay tapped his radio. "Zelenka, I've just emailed you an outline for a new use for the Asgard beam on _Daedalus_. Get on it with Graden and pull Hewston over too. I'll be down in a minute."

"Colonel, I want to suspend all gate travel for Atlantis personnel for the next three days," Dr. Weir said. 

"Good idea."

"I would prefer if none of the Athosians went off-world as well," Halling said. "I will explain the danger."

"Thank you," Weir said, standing to dismiss the meeting. "Thank you for everything."

McKay picked up his tablet and headed out with Sheppard at his heels.

"I'm all yours, Rodney, if you need me to touch anything."

"You've touched quite enough, Colonel."

Weir caught a look of amusement on Teyla's face before the woman went to Halling to touch foreheads. Ronon just crossed his impressive arms and watched.

What the hell was going on?

She had a strategy meeting with her linguistics team scheduled for that morning, a meeting that went long after she showed them the "wanted" photos, so it wasn't until after lunch that she managed to make her way down to the Infirmary.

Considering the high percentage of Guides and Sentinels on the expedition, the IOA had insisted that all medical personnel have experience in G/S medicine. This had turned out to be especially fortuitous when their assigned G/S expert, Dr. Bacco Ingram, had been killed during the first few weeks of the expedition by, of all things, an exploding tumor courtesy of an experimental Ancient weapon.

Though Carson Beckett's official specialty was genetics, his parents had been a G/S team, and his mother was one of those rare bonded Guides who managed to survive the death of her Sentinel – in great part, Elizabeth was sure, because of the love she had for her son. Carson spoke of her often with special fondness.

Weir stepped into the Infirmary only to stop in surprise at the sight of her chief scientist sitting on one of the beds holding an ice pack to his left elbow.

"Dr. McKay?" she asked, crossing the room in concern.

"Dr. Weir!" The man looked unsettled to see her, and before she could reach him, Dr. Beckett had scuttled to the man's side.

"Ach, Elizabeth," Carson said, putting his fingers to McKay's wrist. "Rodney here has had a wee accident."

"Yes!" McKay said. "I...fell. Hard. On my elbow."

"Will he be all right?" she asked Carson.

"Oh, aye." He looked at McKay with dark eyes. "This time." 

"We're just icing it up a bit," McKay said. "Then a nurse will wrap it up, right?" He shot Weir a bright smile. "Hardly worth bothering about, really."

Now thoroughly alarmed, Weir was about to demand an explanation when Carson's warm hand curled around her arm, gently leading her further into the Infirmary and towards his office.

"Dr. Beckett –" she started in a low voice.

"Now, now," Carson said just as quietly. "Rodney says he's fallen, and we can't question that."

"But –"

"Elizabeth." He gestured for her to precede him into his office, then uncharacteristically closed the door. "I mean we cannot ask him."

She looked at the tidy room, the closed door.

"You mean this is Guide-related?"

"Ach, aye." Carson went to his electric kettle. "I was just about to make some tea."

Elizabeth settled into Beckett's clean white visitor's chair as best she could. In a few minutes, she was cradling a hot cup and breathing in the aromas of ginger and peach. Carson made even better tea than Teyla.

She waited until Dr. Beckett had taken his own seat, then looked into his blue eyes, noting the man looked tired.

"My best guess," he began, "and God knows it's only a guess, is that Rodney's attractiveness as a Guide is increasing with long-term exposure regardless of his deactivated state."

Her eyes widened. "So you believe a Sentinel caused..." She gestured back towards the Infirmary.

"It would be better to say I suspect it. Rodney really is the worst liar I've ever met. A lack of practice, I should think."

"But if he's being assaulted –"

"Anything we do without Rodney's express permission would constitute interference in a potential bond."

She took a sip of her tea and felt the decision come easily. "Dr. McKay is mission-essential, and he's made his feelings about bonding perfectly clear. If needed, I'm prepared to send every unbonded Sentinel back to Earth to assure his comfort."

Carson blinked at her, then took a sip of his own tea, obviously gathering his thoughts.

She ran through the list of Sentinels who might need to be reassigned. It would be a shame to lose them – except for Kavanagh, with his almost daily emails and their continuous listing of every fault, slight, and complaint that had offended his person.

"Elizabeth, the most difficult aspect of dealing with Guides and Sentinels is to understand, and truly accept, how different they are from the rest of us. They are, quite simply, genetically incomplete until they bond. Everything else, no matter how civil, how decent, how moral, takes a backseat to bonding.

"It's vital to remember that Helen of Troy was a real woman, not just a symbol of the perfect Guide. That Dahmer, Hitler, and Pol Pot all suffered bond rejection after the state deemed them unfit Sentinels. That Aileen Wuornos became a serial killer after her Sentinel was sent to jail for assaulting her."

Carson paused, looking into his tea.

"Do you know that is was a simple psychological fact in the United Kingdom that teen Guides and Sentinels were fifteen times more likely to commit suicide than their peers? Then Parliament passed the Browne-Rogers Act of 1968, preventing parents from any attempt at bond interference for children over twelve years of age, and G/S suicides virtually went down to zero. All those dead children, and from laws put in place ostensibly to protect them from statutory rape.

"Every culture on Earth has had to learn that any attempt at interference in Pride matters by an outside influence leads to disaster."

"We don't have a Pride on Atlantis."

Carson nodded sadly. "Aye."

Weir frowned. The matter was cause for celebration, as far as she was concerned. No Pride politics, no division of loyalties. What if some Alpha challenged Sheppard's command, or something? Considering their perilous situation, the lack of Pride complications was a blessing.

"Carson, I won't have Dr. McKay harassed on Atlantis."

"Dr. Weir, unless Rodney asks for assistance, there is nothing you can do."

"Can I at least speak to Teyla about it?"

Carson looked stunned. "You want to speak to Teyla about Rodney?"

"Well, even without a Pride, she's still the Alpha Guide, isn't she? And she's on Dr. McKay's team. Perhaps I could persuade her to protect him."

Dr. Beckett set his tea cup aside and rubbed at his face and eyes for several moments. He sighed, then looked up at her with all-too-knowing eyes.

"Ye cannae see him as a man, can ye?" he asked.

"Dr. McKay? Of course I can. That's my point."

"No, not Rodney. Colonel Sheppard."

With steady hands, she set down her own cup, its warmth long gone. "What do you mean?"

"I mean when you deal with him, he has to be a good soldier to you all the time, or a safely bonded Sentinel, or the ideal military commander. You can't see him as a man, as just another imperfect person doing his best to keep us all alive."

Elizabeth opened her mouth to answer. After a while, she closed it again.

But Carson just waited, letting herself get to the point to answer him honestly, even though she still didn't see how it mattered to the business at hand. She and the colonel had a fully satisfactory working relationship.

"No, I can't," she said at last. "When I look...behind the uniform, I suppose I will always see the man who killed my husband."

***

Radek Zelenka had never actually been tortured. His time in the military had been hard. The walk from his country had given him scars he could still see when he put on his socks. But no one had ever tied him to a chair and hurt him, tried personally to break him with unendurable agony.

No one until now. By all that was holy, if he didn't manage to leave Lab Six and go laugh himself hoarse in the next five minutes, his guts were going to explode.

But every time he so much as fidgeted on his stool, lasers shot from crystal blue eyes to promise a quick and painful death.

Miko Kasanagi was trying it now, despite her earlier disaster, hovering over McKay's coffee cup to inquire if perhaps he wanted some fresh cream?

"First of all, if it's fresh, it's not cream. It's juice out of those furry pig-like things from Br!ith."

Radek admired his pronunciation. It was hard to get the "!" sound when one was talking so fast.

"Secondly, even if it were cream," McKay continued, "I don't take cream in my coffee. And third, I would gladly drink furry pig juice in my coffee for the rest of my life if you would just leave me alone!"

The diminutive Japanese woman folded her hands over the part of her face not already obscured by black-framed glasses. Genuine tears dripped over her fingers, though she did not, Radek noted, retreat.

"Cut that out," McKay snapped. "That sort of thing doesn't work with me anymore. Sentinels can no longer cry me, laugh me, scare me, or sex me into their beds, and in this lab there will be no tears and no touching!"

This last was shouted at Kavanagh, who was walking closely behind Dr. McKay with an innocent expression on his rather ferret-like face.

"Rodney," he said.

"That's Dr. McKay to you!"

"Surely you can see you're being unreasonable and putting an undue strain on the Sentinel population of the city."

"There would be no strain if you would leave me alone. Can't you people tell I'm not functional?"

Kavanagh nodded. "Of course, which is why there is an obvious solution to the problem you have not seen, probably because you are too close to the issue. Guides often are unable to see their own situations, something the law used to recognize."

McKay's mouth opened and closed a few times.

Kavanagh removed his glasses to polish them as he continued. "If you would simply deactivate the device and allow the Sentinels on the base to determine possible compatibility, those who find you unsuitable would no longer pursue you for a bond, and you would probably end up finding your bondmate. Perhaps a fellow scientist." The man whipped out what he doubtlessly thought a winning smile.

"The crystal could be deactivated without removal?" Miko squeaked in excitement.

"Yes, I have been working on some figures –"

"That is ENOUGH!" McKay thundered, and if his Voice were active, no doubt every unbonded Sentinel on Atlantis would be cowering in a corner. Maybe the bonded ones too. As it was, everyone in the lab had stopped to stare at him.

"I don't care what sort of bond-lust you people have, and I don't need to care. I am still the Chief of Science and Research on this base, and I will see to it that you are returned to Earth within the hour if you not leave this lab this instant."

Miko scurried from the room. Kavanagh nodded and sauntered out. McKay glared at Dr. Gaul – poised to swoop down with the latest report from Stellar Cartography on his laptop and a rather large bar of chocolate sticking out of his pocket – until the man's shoulder's slumped and he quietly retreated.

McKay glared briefly at the rest of the room, then turned to his laptop to stab at the keys with his good arm.

"You know," Radek suggested. "You could ask Colonel Sheppard for security escort."

"Bite me."

"I am sure he could find many strong Marines to protect you from female Sentinels wielding furry pig juice and epic love poetry."

Rodney winced, his right hand cupping his left elbow.

"Dr. McKay?" asked a fresh-faced private from the doorway. Everyone looked over at the pretty young woman holding a small box of darkened control crystals in her hands. Her nametag read _Pei_. 

"I brought these down to you from the control room."

"I asked Dr. Graden for those," McKay said.

"Grodin," Zelenka murmured.

Private Pei flashed a brilliant smile. "Oh, I told him I didn't mind. I mean, it was no trouble at all." She walked towards McKay with the box as though conveying a holy relic to the high priest.

Braving the Blue Glare of Death, Radek snapped his laptop closed and hurried from the room muttering nonsense in Czech. With effort, he made it into the transporter a split-second before the first hysterical giggles escaped.

***

Teyla knew something was odd in her room the moment the door opened, but there was no sense of threat. When a quiet voice asked, "Please, just come in and close the door," she did as it asked.

She did not see Rodney until she walked around her bed. He had evidently been meditating, or trying to. The eyes that rose to hers were blue pools of misery.

"I hope you don't mind," he said. "I can't stay in my room. She found me there."

"She who? Did Kaleig return to the city?"

"My spirit animal. She was waiting for me."

Teyla blessed her studies. She knew what that meant and why Rodney was so devastated. Without another word, she took off her shoes and lit candles before sitting down before him. 

"The problem with experimental procedures," Rodney said, "is that sometimes experiments fail, no matter how careful everyone is, how good the science is behind them."

"The inhibitor crystal has failed?"

"No, it's doing everything it's supposed to." He gestured to his tablet, abandoned on her nightstand. "I've been doing some research. Zelenka was right. The Ancients used the crystals to disable their Guides and allow them to Ascend."

Teyla waited for the rest.

"The problem is that they were supposed to Ascend right away. The effects were never meant to last six months, let alone be permanent."

The wistfulness of his tone tore at her heart.

"I have to contact Earth," he said next." See how the others are doing. Warn them."

Again, she waited. His breaths were even, and she matched hers to them.

"A Guide wants to be a Guide," he murmured, and it felt so wrong to see him so quiet, and so still.

"I have spoken with John," she said. "At least, I attempted to. I do not recognize him in this state. He almost spoke to me as if I were a stranger. He seemed almost in pain, and yet, he was so...I do not know that I have ever seen him so happy before."

"Where is he now?" Rodney looked somewhat nervously at the door.

"He and Sergeant Stackhouse are flying some of my people back to the mainland."

Rodney didn't look away from the door, however, and when the chime rang, his body jerked violently.

Teyla rose and went to her monitor to see Dr. Kavanagh standing outside her door. With a frown, she tapped her radio.

"Ronon? Are you available to come to my quarters? I require your assistance with an unwanted visitor."

_"On my way."_

With a pleased nod, she returned to McKay and sat back down.

"That won't hold off the little weasel for long."

"Neither Ronon nor I will leave you until we are assured of your safety."

"Carson knows too much about Guides to interfere, even if I want him to," Rodney mumbled. "Zelenka thinks the whole thing is a joke."

"Rodney."

"Weir acts like we're all speaking in tongues."

"Rodney!" 

"What?" His eyes flashed at her, his mouth pulled down.

"Neither Ronon nor I will leave your side until we are assured of your safety."

"Your allegiance is to Sheppard."

"Rodney, you are our friend." She took his hands in hers, frowning at how cold they were. This man should never have cold hands. She was careful of his bruised elbow. 

"Ronon and I will protect you both. I do not know how Dr. Kusanagi can overlook how her aggression caused your injury to your arm, however inadvertently. If John ever hurt a Guide, especially you, he would never forgive himself."

There was a double tap at the door. Teyla kept her grip on McKay's hands firm and smiled.

"That is Ronon letting me know that all is secure outside."

"So what?" Rodney asked in defeat. "It's not like he's going to stand out there all night."

Teyla raised her brows.

"What? All night?"

"Ronon will be fine."

Again she waited, slowly watching Rodney lose at least some of his haunted demeanor, before she asked, "What do you need to warn the others about?"

"Oh, the crystal," he said, fumbling in a pocket to produce a chocolate power bar. 

She tapped her radio. "Aiden?"

" _Teyla_ ," the lieutenant answered, always such a pleasant young man. 

"I wonder if I might impose upon you to bring three meals to my quarters? No citrus, please."

" _Yeah, I heard McKay was in there."_

"You did?"

_"Yeah, that Dr. Kavanagh is going nuts. Says he has a right to see McKay whenever he wants to. Hey, wait. Dr. Weir is arguing with him."_

She watched Rodney tap his own radio to listen in.

_"Wow, she's really going after him. Says...says McKay's sought sanctuary with you, and she's ready to send all the – wow – 'Sentinels in heat' back to Earth. Oh man, I think Kavanagh's gonna bust something. I didn't know somebody's face could get that red."_

"Our meals, please, Aiden, if you would."

_"Sure. On my way."_

McKay looked surprised, then pleased, then confused.

"Did others not help you before?" Teyla asked.

"I didn't need it before." McKay pointed to his head, then realized she didn't understand. "The crystal is blocking out the things it's designed to block out. I'm not getting assaulted by everyone's feelings. I couldn't bond right now even if I met the perfect match. I'm alone, in my head, there's just me."

Teyla nodded. That she did understand.

"But the inhibitor crystal wasn't made with Sentinels in mind. They had already Ascended. Once the initial shock was over and my brain started acting like a Guide's again..."

"Your power called to them once more."

"And being disabled, I can't control it, can't block it. Can't block them. Can't force them to leave me alone. To them, I'm just out there shaking my –"

"I do not believe I wish you to finish that sentence, Rodney." McKay flinched, and she gentled her voice. "Whatever their natural instincts are telling them to do, they know the situation is far from normal, and they are responsible for controlling themselves. If they cannot, then Dr. Weir is correct, and they should be returned to Earth."

McKay shuddered, but his shoulders were no longer touching his ears, and again they sat together for a time, breathing in and out together. When Ronon knocked on the door to announce the arrival of their meals, McKay just looked at her and nodded.

Ronon remained in the corridor while they ate their meatloaf, green beans, and "mac" with cheese. While they were enjoying their chocolate cake, she thought to ask if Rodney would like his cats to join them, and his look of gratitude was so profound she was angry at herself for not thinking of it sooner.

Soon, again with Aiden's cheerful help, the delivery was made. Rodney cooed and murmured at the felines as he released them from their carriers. To her delight, the cats greeted her with affection even before he showed her how to feed them their treats.

He had already shown her how to play with the cat charmer, and soon she had Pajamas jumping on or over everything in her room while Rodney laughed and warned her to watch out for her curtains.

The game ended abruptly when the charmer landed close to Newton, who promptly rolled his weight over the rainbow-colored cloth. Pajamas tried to tug it out for a moment, then rolled on her side to lick a front paw.

Teyla laughed lightly and turned to her friend, only to see that Rodney had fallen asleep on the rug with Galileo curled upon his chest. Quietly, she draped a light throw over his legs, tapped a very gentle "all's well" on the door for Ronon, and then lay down on her bed.

"Can you not see it, Rodney?" she whispered in wonderment while a wandering Newton shook the mattress with each step. "How good the two of you would be?"

***

_A Sentinel's power relies on the Guide, but it comes from the natural and spiritual worlds. Under no circumstances can a Sentinel with four or more enhanced senses (approximately 13% of the Sentinel population) neglect this connection to both the physical and metaphysical realms of existence. Those Sentinels in law enforcement, military, or other highly regimented and institutionalized professions may have the most difficult time accepting the need for regular contact with the spiritual plane, while those in religious, academic, or other highly interior professions may be most likely to turn away from their connections to the natural world._

_"Susan," for example, had to be hospitalized for dehydration and malnutrition after she had taken a series of spirit walks in an attempt to find a Guide._

_I knew I had to eat and all that, but my spirit animal, a turtle, showed me how to turn the energy of the sun into energy within my body through my shell. I swam with him through the spiritual waters in search of my soul, and he was with me always, urging me ever-forward._

_On the other extreme, "Georges," who had both enhanced sight and touch, displayed disgust over his spirit animal, an ant, and admitted that he had given up on regular meditation. In his mid-thirties, he first started to notice numbness in his hands and feet, which eventually became so bad that he burned and cut his hands to the point of suffering severe nerve damage before seeking help._

***

John missed Teyla. Her soothing musical voice practically meditated for him. But he got there eventually, sitting naked on a warm rock by a sun-bright waterfall, the forest tinged blue all around him.

Bob waddled into view eventually, taking his own time, digging for worms in the shadows of the rocks. His armor shone almost too brightly for John to stand to look at, but he squinted at it as best he could. It was rare for his spirit guide to appear so solid. 

_Teyla says she and Ronon are protecting Rodney, John said, and Weir is threatening to send all the unbonded Sentinels home if they can't control themselves._

Bob dug up out a grub with his long claws and chowed down.

_Lorne caught Kavanagh working on a gizmo in an unauthorized lab. Beckett says it could be used to interfere with Rodney's crystal. Lorne's put him under guard in the temporary quarters we've set up at the end of the east pier. That's almost five miles away. If the others are responding like I am, though, it won't help._

The armadillo shot him a look.

_Yeah, I know. If they're like me, I'm supposed to challenge them all and take Rodney to bed. He's a strong Guide and deserves the strongest Sentinel he can find and all that._

Bob yawned then moved over towards the sparking pool.

_No, look, I don't care about that. Rodney is the one who gets to make the choice, and he's chosen to choose nobody. We're all supposed to respect that. If anybody lays a hand on him, including me, I'm going to cut it off._

Bob showed him his armadillo butt, long tail trailing, then dove into the water.

_That didn't count. Besides, it was just, you know, a little touching._

Bob swam away, smelling like disappointment.

_What do you want me to say? I want to touch him? Of course I do. God, I want to strip him naked, dive inside him, and wear him all day like a coat. I want to lick every inch of his skin, bury my face in his hair, suck his cock, open him up and just live with my dick in his body._

_And his hands. Damnit, those hands. I bet he used to play the piano with hands like that. Sometimes he looks like he's pounding out a concerto when he types on that laptop. I want those hands on me, playing a symphony on my skin._

_And his eyes. You have to have noticed them. If I'd ever found a sky that color to fly in, I'd never have landed. I bet they get dark when he comes. And that mouth. God, can you imagine what a mouth like that could do?_

_But that's just porn. Rodney McKay – it's not that he's smart, or brave, or funny, or whatever else I could say about the guy. It's not anything like that at all. I want him. Who wouldn't want him if they saw him the way he really is? Anybody put off by a few rude, honest words doesn't deserve to want him._

_I've been in bond-lust before, and yeah, I want to screw the hell out of the guy. But now, I feel like I have got to have him. If he doesn't bond with me, I feel like I'll never be able to want anything again._

It was dark as he admitted this last, but then he realized his eyes were closed. In resignation, he slowly opened them, only to see he was still in the blue-tinged forest. Something rustled in the leaves, and he looked down in relief that Bob had returned.

But though the shape was about the right size, Bob had never had fur.

The beaver looked back at him with sad, hurt blue eyes.

_Well, little fella. Hello there. I'd call you by name, but I think first we need to be formally introduced._

The beaver looked him over from head to toe then turned and jumped into the pool to swim towards the gray armadillo shining brightly in the sun.

***

The puddlejumper showed up after breakfast, hovering over the cabin for a moment, then landing with an abundance of caution, one foot at a time, to the ground.

The clearing had been claimed by the Sentinels of the Atlantis expedition about five minutes after Colonel Sheppard had first discovered the mainland. The pool, the waterfall, the clean rocks, the morning sun: it might as well have been ordered from the Hammacher-Schlemmer catalog. 

The first cabin had been a pre-fab, but the latest version now settled almost invisibly into the treescape, all logs and perfect-perfect seams. The smoke rising from the stone chimney was white and pure.

Rodney McKay thought, improbably, of the Pope.

Ronon and Teyla left the craft first, scanning the area, establishing a perimeter without a word. It might be that they knew he couldn't really deal with talking right now, or it might be that they just didn't need conversation themselves.

Rodney took a second to wonder if Teyla had yet realized she was pregnant.

And wouldn't that have gone over great if I hadn't shown up? McKay thought. The whole thing was such a victim of good timing, in fact, that he was tempted to review Sandburg's treatise on the way "nature provides," as though Sentinels and Guides were in tune with some great cosmic yenta.

Of course, that only applied if his spirit animal weren't just as desperate as he was and he and Sheppard didn't turn out to be as compatible as electromagnetics and topography.

It took him a while, actually, despite all the pre-planning, to walk out of the jumper with his bulging duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He had decided against wearing his uniform, opting for linen pants and a cotton shirt, wondering why the whole thing had to seem like he was walking into his first mixer, twelve years old and feeling smaller than his own ears and elbows.

Teyla and Ronon were nowhere in sight. For just a second, he thought about having them as friends and how completely outside of his sphere the two of them were. Not that he had many friends in general, but a warrior princess and Conan's long-lost son, well, talk about not seeing it coming.

The door to the cabin opened, and John Sheppard walked out, long trim lines and rakish hair. Tight blue jeans and a soft, light blue flannel shirt. It was the first time McKay had ever seen him not wear black. 

Rodney wanted to meet him halfway, but his feet wouldn't work at all. John just kept coming closer with an open look of longing on his face.

But then he frowned and came to a halt, and Rodney found himself walking forward after all. 

"You didn't take the crystal out," Sheppard said flatly when Rodney was about two feet away.

"No, but..." He took the duffel strap off his shoulder and rummaged inside until he found an ugly little gray box. "I liberated this from Kavanagh's desk, along with some Mars Bars."

"What is it?"

"It should deactivate the crystal temporarily, long enough for...you know."

Sheppard actually growled. "Kavanagh?"

"Yes, but I only plan to try this with you. I mean, if it doesn't work out, I'm not going to..."

"You said it should work. You haven't tried it yet?"

"No, not on the city. But I read through his notes, and the principles are sound." He looked at the cabin, then up at the bright sun. "Can I, uh, come in?"

Sheppard took his bag and led him back. The inside of the cabin was all soft light and smooth wood, simple furniture, cream curtains, huge bed, and immaculately clean. He put the bag down on the small dining table then turned to look intently into Rodney's eyes.

"Thank you." A sudden abashed look came over his features, and he ducked his head slightly, pushing a hand through his hair. "And sorry about the last time we talked."

McKay shrugged. "I've had worse since, believe me. Speaking of which, please mind my elbow." He pull up his sleeve to show the bandage, unsurprised when John's eyes filled with rage.

"Who did that?"

"Miko, but she didn't mean to. I was backing away from her when I went down and hit it on the floor."

"Was she holding a knife or something?"

McKay snorted. "You know that scene when the Vorgon has Ford and Author tied up and forces them to listen to his poetry while they scream in pain?"

"That bad?"

"Evidently, my eyes are vortexes of aquamarine, and my hands are teeming metropolises of fingers."

"What, nothing about your ass?"

"My ass?"

"Well, if I were writing you a love sonnet, it would definitely be about your ass."

"Maybe for Valentine's Day."

"You gonna turn on Kavanagh's crystal-stopper any time soon?" John's eyes had gone dark.

Rodney looked around the room, eyes coming to rest on that large bed. "I don't know how much control I'm going to have over myself. There's not just my vulnerability to your emotions, there's ten years plus of only dating my hand, there's just how incredibly attracted to you I am even with this thing in my brain."

"Really?" John's smile was warm and happy. Rodney's stomach did an embarrassing flip.

"I just want to talk about a couple things first. If this doesn't work out –"

"Stop saying that. It will work. I know it's you."

"God, I hope so. You have no idea." McKay closed his eyes against a wave of dizziness.

John's voice was wry and very close. "Actually, I think I do."

He opened his eyes to find Sheppard only inches from him, close enough to smell sun-warm skin and clean breath. As he watched, John raised a hand to cup his face then skim his fingertips over his chin. "It's you, Rodney. It has to be. I met your spirit guide."

McKay couldn't help smiling, and a thumb traced his lips. "Yeah, I met 'Bob' too."

Kissing then was an inevitable fall, hot and deep and much gentler than either of them had expected. John's lips were lush, fitting against his perfectly. 

"I know it's you, Rodney," he murmured into the kiss. "Let me have you, please. Bond with me and be mine."

Pulling back just enough to be able to see what he was doing, Rodney brought up the ugly gray box, took a breath, and flipped the switch.

Which did nothing.

John got his teeth around Rodney's right earlobe, and the crystal roared louder in his head than ever. Frantic, Rodney flipped the switch several more times, then whacked it against his head.

"Damn Kavanagh! We’d he do? Forget the batteries?!"

"Rodney," John moaned, his hands gripping his hips to pull the heat of them together.

"Wait, John." He tried to turn away, then almost came as a hot hand slipped right down the front of his pants to cup his balls. "Oh, God."

John hummed in appreciation, grinding himself against Rodney's buttock.

"No, you have to stop." McKay jerked the hand out of his pants – totally unfair – and ran out the still-open door as he scrabbled at the box' ill-fitting seam. "Just for a minute!" he yelled back. "I don't know what it might do to us with the crystal still active."

"Now," John moaned, stumbling after him. "It's got to be now."

Why didn't he bring his toolkit? Why had he ever trusted Kavanagh's workmanship? Was he brain damaged?

John's hands landed on his shoulders.

"Ronon!" he shouted, sorry John was being exposed in this state, but more concerned about the crystal pounding in his head and what it might do to their ability ever to bond if they were thwarted on their first try. 

"I don't want him here," John growled.

"Ronon! I need a knife! A small one!"

Something whizzed through the air to hit the ground near his right foot. John twirled towards it with a snarl.

"It's just a tool I need," Rodney soothed as he snatched the knife up to jam the blade into the box' seam. Damnit, without the Voice he might as well try to calm his Sentinel with a rain dance. 

John was scanning the tree line, keeping Rodney behind him. The scientist used the distraction to pry the box open. Everything looked okay at first – the design was certainly simple enough – and the damn emitter should be...wait. The connection hadn't been secured.

"Ack!" Rodney found himself tumbling to the ground with a very heavy and somewhat pointy-boned lieutenant colonel on his back.

"Now, Rodney," he groaned into his ear, hands pulling up his shirt, a hot mouth sucking the bared skin of his lower back. "God, you smell so good."

"But not good enough, John, listen..." He was rolled on his back and kissed back to his tonsils. Instinctively, Rodney spread his legs while John got his fly open. He realized he was digging at his own scalp as though he could pull the fucked-up crystal out of his head. It was almost like he could feel the dark, ugly thing scraping against his brain.

John had his pants down to his knees and was looking him over like he was made of chocolate. His stiff, swollen, and copiously leaking cock bobbed in agreement, smacking his pale stomach. The crystal's roar in his head had become a piercing whine. God, if John touched him now...

"Danger!" Rodney shouted and watched hazel eyes dilate. "Danger!" He craned his head back to look at the cabin. "Protect your Guide!"

In an instant, John was up and dragging him up the path, growling and hissing at the forest around them as though the trees had transformed into monsters. Rodney kept his body limp, wincing as his bare butt was dragged over the grass and rocks, while his hands cradled the opened box. The whole thing was just a transmitter, and the problem was just power.

His ass hit wood, and the shadow of the cabin's roof slid up his arms.

The myopic weasel had just crammed the power cell into the interface like it was some AA in a flashlight. 

Hands released him, and he fell back, staring upward while John stripped out of his clothes. By touch alone, Rodney finessed the power cell, gently, gently, into place. But while Sheppard knelt to take off Rodney's boots, he had to look at what he was doing, folding the box back together, pressing the seal down firmly.

John bit lightly at his thigh as he peeled down his pants.

"Please, please work, damn you," McKay pleaded, though the sound was muffled as John worked his shirt over his head.

Naked, spread out, and wanting John inside him so bad it fucking hurt, Rodney flipped the switch again.

The silence inside his head was so loud he dizzily wondered if he'd gone deaf. He locked his eyes on John's, willing himself to feel the man inside his head where the crystal had been, terrified he wouldn't, and still so turned on he felt bubbles in his blood.

Something in John's expression softened, then seemed surprised. A hand went to his temple.

"Rodney? Is that you?"

Wonderment, glee, urgency, and more in a jumble rolled into his awareness, warm and deep and – holy shit, John wanted him as much as Rodney wanted him back.

Lifting his knees to fold his legs back, he groaned. "Just fuck me already."

John frowned, looking down. "I can't just –"

Rodney grabbed his hand, brushing his fingers against that ever-present black sweatband on his wrist, and guided him down to where he was loose and slick. John's eyes darkened further even as they widened in shock. A strong, calloused finger entered him, exploring.

Rodney smacked his hands on the wooden floor, doubtlessly getting splinters and not giving a shit.

" _In me now!_ " and there was the Voice. He'd missed it so much.

His strong, lean body trembling now, John balanced himself on one hand and his knees, pressing Rodney's legs back with his body as his other hand guided his slick cock home. He choked out Rodney's name as the Guide felt the hard, hot length of him fill him completely.

"Oh, God," Rodney moaned. "It's been so long."

John withdrew slightly and then thrust, going even deeper into his body and pressing up against the shields of his mind. Again and again.

Rodney spread himself wider, laying his arms on the floor, baring his neck. "Please," he whispered through the fireworks of his body. "Please."

The solid body atop his stilled for just a minute.

"Look at me, Rodney."

Sweat-damp hair sticking out every which way, tanned skin shining in the light through the open door, muscles braced in an unconscious show of strength.

"Choose me," John whispered. "I'll be yours forever. I'll never leave you, Rodney. I swear it."

Rodney swallowed and tasted salt. Sweat or tears, he didn't know. It was humanly impossible to want anything more, yet John was still outside him, peering through his shields. He saw himself peering back, reaching through, John reaching back for him.

Rodney felt his own eyes widen, his mouth open, and something that had always been as closed as stone inside him relax and flex. And John was within him, protected and held, as simple and beautiful as a diamond inside a velvet-lined box.

The Sentinel shouted out in triumph, pushing as deeply inside his Guide as he could in every conceivable sense of the word. Rodney saw himself through John's mind: blue and brilliant. Loud, comforting energy that fanned out in snowflake fractals.

Together, they flew up through the desolate exile of ten years, back to when he knew his Sentinel would be exceptional, that it would be only a matter of time before he would become the best Guide ever known.

And the pain of it was numbed, made distant, a memory that could no longer hurt him, no longer make him feel anything but grateful that all that time he had been waiting, pure and perfect.

With John's ridiculous laugh of pleasure, they tumbled back into the Sentinel's mind. Loyal strength, unconquerable integrity, and so damn lonely. 

Rodney ached for him as his father pushed John out of his life, as his brother David became a stranger, as Nancy refused his marriage proposal because she wasn't going to play second fiddle when John found his Guide.

And now John was pushed back from that rejection, that loss. There was only Rodney in its place, finding him.

John's body tensed at the inevitability of climax, and Rodney laughed aloud at the tidal wave of it all. As he emptied himself between their bodies, he had never been so completely replete.

"I'll never be alone again," he said, knowing it like he knew Pi, like he knew how to breathe.

"No," John said, shifting his weight with a groan even as he gathered Rodney closer in his arms, kissing his shoulder, his neck, his lips, lingering there. "My Guide."

"Thank God. The universe is a yenta after all."

"Huh?" John blinked at him, face already going slack with sleep.

"My Sentinel," Rodney said, smiling at that impossibly handsome face and simply impossible hair.

John grunted, then made an effort before his whole body went slack, breathing it out: "Yours."

***

If he'd thought about it, Ronon Dex would rather have never seen his CO having sex. But everyone seemed to think it was going to help. And besides, he could honestly say he'd seen more of Sheppard in the shower. Not that there was much to see, considering that he had no ass whatsoever.

Rodney had better not lose that knife. It was his eighth favorite.

***

Waking up felt like his whole body was his dick, snug from head to toe inside a tight, warm body.

Waking up a bit more, he started to laugh. He'd never make a living at Hallmark.

There was vague protesting from his left shoulder, but when he turned to look, Rodney was smiling, all sleep-fuzzy and content.

"Oh, I like this," John said.

"Keeping me, then?"

"Absolutely."

"Good." Rodney closed his eyes and snuggled into his pillows.

"Hmmm."

"What?" Rodney kept his eyes shut.

"Who's going to move in with who? I mean, I know you have that prescription mattress, but you're farther away from the tower than I want to be."

Rodney was looking at him now and frowning.

"We have to make sure the room is safe, and I don't want you to be too far from your labs, or course."

Gentle, nimble fingers traveled over the sheets and up his shoulder before coming to rest against his lips.

"Hold that thought," the Guide mumbled, then slid out of bed.

"Where are you going?"

"Shhh."

John frowned, aware he might even be pouting just a little. Rodney was quick, though, rooting through his duffel and coming back with his laptop.

"You're going to do work now?"

"Hush." Rodney slid back into bed and ended up flush against John's side, instantly filling him with contentment. "Good," the Guide whispered, opening the computer. "Now, this will only take a few minutes."

"What will?" There were a lot of interesting things in John's bed right now, but none of them had to do with the laptop.

Tinkly piano music played from the computer.

_So, the moment has finally come. You've found your bond-mate and joined together for the rest of your lives_ , a man's voice crooned deeply.

"You gotta be kidding me."

"Shhh."

On screen, an evidently newly bonded male-male pair were in bed, tan silk sheets over their hips, gazing at each other with what John gathered was supposed to be passion.

_Though you've never felt so good, so at peace, you're also filled with questions. How can you live with someone when you're so used to being alone? Can you make domestic decisions consciously, or will instinct rule your lives?_

_Where will you live? Who will pay the bills? Who will clean the bathroom?_

"Rodney, please, for the love of God..."

"I'll blow you when it's done."

_It's vital to remember that you have never in your life been as vulnerable as now._

The men onscreen were having some sort of argument. One fell sobbing into a chair while the other stomped out and slammed the door, only to return in a few seconds, pleading forgiveness.

_Your soul is now tied to another. It's okay to be afraid. And when we're afraid, it's only natural to try to micromanage everything in your life. It gives you a sense of control._

"I'm not sure even a blowjob is worth this."

"Think about how strong my tongue has to be to talk as fast as I do."

The men were now dressed in casual clothes, holding each other as they sat on a porch swing, gazing up at the stars.

_But that control is false. You are at the mercy of your bond-made, and you always will be. The best way to make it through the first days of a bond is to remember that your bond-mate is also at your mercy, as deeply and completely as you. That is the only way bonds are formed, the only way they can be formed._

"I trust you, Rodney."

"It's not a matter of trust."

_It is true that every decision you now make, for the rest of your life, will involve another person. But it also true that not every decision will actually interest him. Your new deodorant? He'll care because it will change the way you smell. You decide you want to buy a house closer to work? He may not care at all, because it makes you happy._

_Do not attempt to anticipate your bond-mate's wishes regarding your needs at this time. That sort of understanding of the re-echo of your bond comes with years of practice. Only concern yourself with accepting the happiness so new to your life. Allow yourself this joy._

The male couple was back in bed, staring at one another again in sugary bliss.

"See? It's not so bad."

"Rodney, my balls have curdled."

_You do not believe it now, but you are allowed to be this happy. And your happiness will make the people you love happier. Each of you is the key to the other's person's joy._

_Relax. Enjoy what you have earned as Sentinel and Guide._

The video came to an end with some credits and more tinkly music.

"That was pretty bad, Rodney."

"You feel better. Admit it."

"No."

"What about if I do this?"

"Uhhh."

"See? I'm not worrying about whether my attempt to make you happy is making us happy, or whatever. I just really like the way this feels."

"More."

"More?"

"Harder. Shit, Rodney."

"So articulate. Come on, order me to do it better. No, don't order. Ask, ask... because I'm your friend. You can ask, and it makes me happy."

"You have such warm hands."

"I'll always be warm for you, John."

"Ngh. Nothing's always warm."

"I'm not a thing. I'm the Guide."

"Guide. Yes. Please, please. I need more."

"I know exactly what you need. Look at you, all spread out, trim muscles everywhere, lines going down from your stomach to your hips. You're so hairy. There's sweat on your face. Sweat pooling on your neck. God, your neck."

"There! Shit! Oh, fuck!

"Oh, my God. I see the energy there. I see can see how it channels into the rest of your body. I can see the nerves in pattern on a screen!"

"In me."

"I can't. I don't have any –"

"In my pocket. The pants on the floor."

Again, he watched Rodney slide from the bed, and, just as quickly as before, he was back, expression intense.

"I just...need."

"I know, John. It's okay."

Rodney's hair was thinning. It was soft under his fingers, fine and just slightly tending to curl. The warmth around him intensified all over, then slithered into a specific site.

"God."

He felt Rodney smile around him and spread himself out wider. A brief touch at his center, then another, then pressure, then warmth inside, and a gentle stroke.

"Fuck!"

A gun to his head couldn't have kept him from coming. His whole body got in on the act, and he might have lost it completely for a minute there when he felt Rodney swallow.

Vaguely, he reached down, but found his Guide was wet.

"I've never done that before," Rodney mumbled as he slid up against John's side where he belonged.

John snorted.

"No, I mean I've never come from making someone else come before. It was like I felt you all around me."

John searched for something clever, or at least something coherent to say. But Rodney started making those snore-snuffle noises, so he just went to sleep.

***

_We can only wonder if Nature, the World, God, the Goddess must keep watch over Sentinels and Guides, as they watch over humanity. The cruelty of one-Guide-one-Sentinel would be intolerable without some sort of safeguard. Is it true that, in fact, many different Guides and Sentinels can bond? Or is it that nature provides?_

_There are many stories told of Guides and Sentinels appearing just when they should. Is it that they are called? Or is it that a desperate Guide or Sentinel will sense that the time has come to bond or die?_

_Perhaps there is nothing in a bond but convenience and need. But for me, I cannot help believing that the Guide and Sentinel, being so reliant on the spiritual plane, have found friends with powers beyond ourselves, and it is up to us only to be grateful. (Sandburg, Nature Provides, p98)_

***

Teyla watched Ronon approach and smiled in greeting. He nodded. They had taken supplies from the jumper to make a pleasant campsite, as both preferred to sleep under the stars.

She built up the fire while Ronon set out a few knives and his whetting stone. She had never seen the small red one before.

"So," he said, surprising her by speaking first. "You okay with all this?"

"The knowledge that John has found his Guide provides me with the utmost satisfaction."

Ronon looked at her, then slid his stone over a blade. Somehow, the sound seemed skeptical.

"Rodney has recently informed me of an event that, had I needed to continue as Colonel Sheppard's Guide, would have greatly complicated matters."

He frowned.

"It would seem that I am with child."

A blank stare met her words, but it was not judgmental.

"I confirmed it with Dr. Beckett before we left."

"Congratulations. Kanaan is the father?"

"You knew that we were..?"

"I could tell, the way you talked about him."

She smiled.

"Yeah, like that." Suddenly, Ronon was up and in her space, hugging her. "You'll be a great mother." And he smiled at her then, broad and open, and she loved him a little more again.

"Thank you," she said, and touched her forehead to hers.

His eyes were mischievous. "You know, Ronon makes a good name, boy or girl."

She laughed, punching him lightly on the shoulder, and they settled down again, closer now. The sunset was orange against the sky, and a little pink.

"I know this will affect the team," she said.

Ronon picked up a fresh knife. "I think what's going on over there is gonna affect it more."

"Tell me, Ronon. Does it not seem as though Dr. McKay's arrival is almost too fortuitous?"

"What do you mean?"

"It is almost as though someone were seeing to John Sheppard's health as a Sentinel."

"You're talking about what that Sandburg guy wrote."

She thought about that, knowing Ronon would not become impatient. 

"Several others have pondered the phenomenon of Guides and Sentinels who have appeared at extremely auspicious moments."

Ronon nodded, scraping cold steel against stone.

"It is difficult not to want to attribute Rodney's arrival at this time to some sort of intervention. Before the Lanteans arrived here, I would have considered him a gift from the Ancestors."

"You don't believe in the Ancestors anymore?"

She considered it, enjoying the rosy tinge to the air. She had seen pictures of sunsets on Earth so spectacular they seemed paintings by an all-powerful hand, masterpieces done by artists to whom she had once prayed.

"I respect the idea of the Ancestors, but I know now the Ancients were not gods. In fact, I have joined in some of the Lanteans' contempt for some of what they did."

"The Wraith."

"Yes, and more. I would say they seem like god-children, playing with power they didn't understand. I think I might still plea to them for mercy, but not for guidance."

"So how do you explain it? McKay turning up now?"

"Dr. Sandburg suggested the procedure that allowed Rodney to come here. Perhaps the intelligence at work here is simply his." 

"Life on Seteda was simple. I was a soldier. Everyone knew who the enemy was. Guides and Sentinels were somebody else's problem."

Teyla recognized her own time to be patient.

"Sheppard, he holds himself back," Ronon said finally. "I see him sometimes, touching something he doesn't trust, angry because he's doing something more than he wanted."

"John is often angry at himself for things beyond his control," she agreed. "It takes up much of his energy. I cannot help but wonder, now that he does not have to –"

The deliberate snap of a twig brought them to their feet, P-90 in her hands, Ronon's gun aimed straight.

A sleep-mussed Sentinel stood a few feet away. Bare feet, hands in his pockets, T-shirt untucked, Sheppard looked them over as they lowered their weapons.

"So," he said, nodding at her stomach. "Congratulations." 

She laughed. "You could hear us?" The cabin was a good quarter-mile away.

"Yeah." John scratched at his hair. “Rodney says he packed white noise generators in the jumper, if you guys want some privacy."

They looked behind themselves to the parked vehicle. Ronon stared at his commander and crossed his arms pointedly. But, Teyla reflected, everything Ronon did was pointed. He was a poet of noises and gestures.

John shrugged, then tilted his head. For the first time since she had met him, his "listening" pose looked easy. "Rodney's waking up." He turned and walked back without making a sound. For a moment, Teyla could have sworn she saw a small gray animal tip-toeing along at his feet. But it was gone when she blinked.

Ronon's smirk was quite plain, however, when she turned back to her team member.

"Oh yeah," he said. "This is gonna be fun."

***

Dr. Weir considered that the "Lead for Genii" project was coming along well, even without the participation of her head scientist and military commander.

The _Daedalus_ had experienced little difficulty in using Dr. McKay's schematics to adapt the Asgard sensors to beam up pure galena from   
PXJ-328. After that, Drs. Zelenka and Peterson had worked up a highly effective method of processing the lead from the galena. 

The current issue on the table was how to deliver the lead to the Genii. Tossing it through the gate might well kill someone on the other side and perhaps be misinterpreted as an attack. Sending it through with a MALP meant losing the MALP. Beaming it down from the _Daedalus_ meant exposing their technology. Secretly beaming it down meant they still needed to get the Genii a message about where to find it and would still suggest the technology used.

Going through an intermediary left everyone too exposed. A ramp through the stargate wouldn't work, as objects traveled through the gate in discrete packets. They could roll an unpowered cart through, but again, the heaviness of the lead might turn the vehicle into a juggernaut.

" _Ano_ ," Dr. Zelenka said finally, bringing Elizabeth back to the discussion. "If we put the _Daedalus_ into orbit around Genii homeworld, they can scan for life signs. If no one is around, we gate over supply team to stack lead containers. Then they gate back. If emergency happens, Daedalus can beam them out."

"I don't like the risk of tipping our hand like that," Caldwell said. "And what if they booby-trap the gate?"

"What if we send a cloaked jumper with the team?" Peterson suggested, peering at his tablet through his long, dirty-blond bangs.

"I want them to know about the jumpers even less than I want them to know about our beaming technology," Weir said.

"We could use a slow-moving cart, basic power, perhaps steam," Peterson offered next. "Large, unable to hurt anyone and with only enough power to have it stop directly beyond the gate."

"Breaking system is more important," Zelenka argued. "Good push will get the wheels through the gate. But it must stop before it topples off the stairs and crushes what is beneath."

"What if it didn't topple?" Elizabeth asked. 

"Ah, we use caterpillar treads."

"I don't want to show the Genii how to make a tank," Caldwell said.

"Long platform on wheels. We push it through, make sure enough platform is long enough to span steps and meet ground."

"But not so long the back of the platform is still stuck inside the ring," Peterson said.

" _Ano._ "

"Do we have enough data on the Genii platform to measure that exactly?" she asked.

"Yes," Peterson said.

"Then let's go with that for now. We can rig up a similar platform at the Alpha Site for a test run."

Caldwell nodded approval, but it looked unconscious, so she just stood and smiled while meeting broke up. Her next appointment was waiting patiently outside her door. He only stepped through after acknowledging Caldwell. The door closed behind him.

"Please, have a seat, Major Lorne," she said in welcome.

"Dr. Weir," he said, and they both sat down.

She took a moment, looking around her office. The tribal masks from Olank, the lightly scented candles from a monastery on Primus Rocc, the small photo of her dog, Sedgewick, the larger one of her late husband, Dillon.

Major Lorne himself was most like the latter artifacts: a piece of home. With his dark-haired, handsome looks and politely easy manner, he was an infinite comfort to her. In fact, his nickname among the American troops was "Apple Pie." 

However, his loyalty to Sheppard had been as steadfast and unwavering as she had been warned it would be. She suspected – no, she was certain – if Sheppard ever staged a mutiny, Lorne wouldn't even blink before he'd take Sheppard's side.

"I need your help, Evan."

He looked surprised at the use of his first name, but responded evenly, "Of course, Elizabeth." When she didn't reply right away, he continued in the same calm tone, "I'm guessing this has to do with Colonel Sheppard and Dr. McKay."

"I would go to Carson," she said. "But I'm concerned about doctor/patient confidentiality."

He nodded, then frowned. "If this is the discussion I think you want to have, I would like to have my Guide present."

"Honestly, I just want to ask a few questions."

"With all due respect, ma'am, you want me to talk about the Alpha Sentinel on this base. As his Beta, I would like to have my Guide present."

"John Sheppard has refused to assume the position of Alpha."

Lorne smiled, and she felt like a child who didn't get the joke. "It's not really something he can refuse, ma'am. The Pride is here for him when he needs us."

After keying her radio, Dr. Weir kept her voice neutral as she asked, "Shen Xiaoyi, please report to my office."

The beautiful Chinese woman appeared so quickly, Weir suspected the ambassador had been waiting in the Gate Room.

She smiled and said all the right things to welcome Lorne's Guide, but she doubted the woman was fooled. Originally China's official delegate to the International Oversight Advisory, Xiaoyi had voiced her dissatisfaction with the Stargate Program more than a few times. Then, last year, she had come on a mission supposedly to report on the Atlantis Expedition. Elizabeth had smelled plans within plans, and their first real meeting had been adversarial at best.

And then as Elizabeth had been showing Ambassador Xiaoyi to her quarters – dreaming of a hot cup of tea – and Evan Lorne had come around the corner, put his arms around the woman, and pleaded with her to be his Guide. They had bonded within the hour, despite the fact that Shen was a lesbian and her career had nothing to do with being an American major's wife.

So, though Evan Lorne was the epitome of familiarity, Shen Xiaoyi baffled her, from her perfectly styled hair and sharp, fashionable business suit to her sharp, yet warm eyes and overt devotion to her Sentinel.

"As I understand it," Shen announced as she sat, "you're finally interested in matters that don't concern you."

"Yes, I have a number of questions –"

"None of which we are prepared to answer," Shen said.

Lorne looked uncomfortable but stayed silent.

"Colonel Sheppard is my military commander," Weir said, “and it's obvious he's undergoing a significant personal change. I need to understand –"

"You needed to understand Colonel Sheppard before this expedition ever launched, but some forgiveness may be offered, considering the disruption he caused when Sumner resigned, then the distraction when your husband was assigned in his place. Then, as you well know, you allowed your grief to blind you to your duty to every person on Atlantis, both those under your command and the Athosians."

Dr. Weir closed her mouth over her instinctive objections, allowing the moment to settle before she made her case.

"Whatever my insufficiencies have been in the past – please, don't interrupt me again, Ambassador – things will only be made worse if I am not allowed information regarding the people under my command."

"Are you going to use this as some sort of excuse to ship the Alpha back to Earth?" Shen demanded.

"Major Lorne," Elizabeth found herself pleading.

"Shen," the major said, turning to his Guide. "Dr. Weir was instrumental in seeing that Colonel Sheppard retained his place as military commander of the base when we reestablished contact with Earth. She has supported him every step of the way."

"Professionally," Shen dismissed. "But personally, Dr. Weir, emotionally, spiritually, you have made it clear you could not care less about the Alpha Sentinel of this community, or about any other Sentinel or Guide under your care."

"He told me Teyla was his Guide! I supported his petition to the GSC to have her officially recognized."

"You encouraged him in his delirium and made a mockery of the Pride! "

"Sheppard told me he didn't have a Pride!" 

"There are over thirty Sentinels and Guides in this city. Of course he has a Pride, and it was your job to encourage him to solidify his position as Alpha. But instead, you've enjoyed having a crippled, practically non-functional Sentinel – one of his abilities, no less –"

"Dr. Ingstram told me it was my role to stay out of Sentinel affairs!" 

"Because he was there to act as intermediary. The position fell to you with his death."

"No one in the Sentinel community told me that."

"You didn't ask!"

"I'm asking now."

"You're late." 

Elizabeth forced herself back in her chair, taking deep, slow breaths.

"If I have really been so derelict in my responsibilities –"

"You have."

"...then your anger is understandable, even justified. And I do offer my apologies –" She put up a hand. "To all Sentinels and Guides on this base, including Colonel Sheppard. But my mistakes don't let either of us off the hook. As Beta Guide, it falls to you to assist me in accommodating the new Alpha pair."

Shen raised an eyebrow. "You realize I'm no longer the Alpha Guide of Atlantis?"

"Yes, as I understand things, Dr. – Guide McKay now holds that position."

"Can you tell me why?"

Elizabeth relaxed slightly. "Because of his abilities. The Alpha Sentinel's Guide is not necessarily the Alpha Guide, and vice-versa, though the expansion of one's abilities from the bond may elevate both Sentinel and Guide."

"I see you've gotten through the first manual."

"I raided Dr. Ingstram's library."

"I thought his belongings had been returned to Earth."

Elizabeth looked another photo of Sedge. "I took possession of his library directly after his death, except for his collectables, which I returned to his family."

"And they've been sitting on your shelf somewhere since?" Shen shot her a look of pity and scorn, but it was somehow less angry than before.

"Yes."

Shen sat back, and with the synchronicity of Sentinel and Guide, Major Lorne leaned forward.

"You weren't there, ma'am. Which is nothing but chance. But you never asked."

"You gave me a full report," she said, feeling her skin grow tight.

"I gave a basic SITREP, ma'am. You refused further information."

At moments like these, Elizabeth would always imagine a fist in the middle of her gut, clenching tightly.

"I know what happened," she said. "Dillon and Colonel Sheppard were exploring the area outside the main ZPM console. They agreed to split up, with Dillon taking Halliwell and Garak, Colonel Sheppard taking Ford and Gonzales. A hibernating Wraith suddenly attacked Dillon's team, killing Halliwell and Garak. By the time Colonel Sheppard arrived with his team, Colonel Everett was moments from death. Colonel Sheppard killed Colonel Everett to prevent the Wraith from further feeding, and he and Lieutenant Ford then killed the Wraith."

"'To prevent the Wraith from further feeding,'" Shen echoed. "Is that how you view it? That he made a strategic decision to remove Colonel Everett from the situation?"

When she didn't respond immediately, Xiaoyi and Lorne settled slightly and watched her without comment. Elizabeth knew she was supposed to talk about mercy killings and putting dogs out of their misery, but the words jammed up behind her tongue. 

"Elizabeth," Shen said. "There was not a Guide in the city who didn't feel what your husband felt in his last living moments."

"What?" She realized she was standing up. The others didn't move. "I don’t...I don't think..."

"He wasn't just in pain. He wasn't just dying. The Wraith was stealing his life," Shen said. "He was desperate for the end. When he died from John's actions, the Wraith felt cheated, and your husband was freed. He got to take the best of himself away."

Elizabeth was at her door. Vaguely, she wondered where she thought she was supposed to go. Beyond the glass, no one was looking at her, staring at the spectacle she had to be making out of herself.

"Dr. Weir," Lorne called.

"You never let yourself grieve," Shen told her. "You've held on to your anger and let it blind you to –"

"Shut up," Elizabeth whispered.

"Dr. Weir?"

"Elizabeth?"

"I said, shut up." She turned to them, feeling oddly separate from her legs. "What do you know about it? What do you know about anything?"

Shen stood up and walked into her space. "I know he did what he could to ease your husband's passing."

"He should have brought Dillon to Medical."

"With the Wraith attached?" Lorne asked. "As long as he was drawing life from Colonel Everett, there was no way to kill him without having him draw the last of Everett's energy to heal himself."

"What scenario have you made up, Elizabeth?" Shen demanded. "Do you think the Alpha could have killed the Wraith, brought Dillon to Medical, and...what? What good would that have done?"

"He would have lived."

"For how long? An hour? Suffering great pain or drugged into a coma? Would you really have wished that on your husband just so you could say goodbye?" Shen snorted. "You should have thanked Colonel Sheppard for his kindness to the man you loved. You should have befriended our Alpha and looked after his needs. You should have insisted he continue to search for his Guide. Instead, you treat him strictly as a military asset and can barely look him in the eye."

Elizabeth made herself walk behind her desk and sit down in her chair. Delicately, she put her clasped hands on her desktop.

"I need you to explain Teyla to me," she said. 

"Teyla Emmagan has an exceptionally strong and balanced mind. Her spiritual and mind/body awareness boarders on the extraordinary. But she is not, and never will be, a Guide."

"Because her body cannot produce the necessary bonding hormones," Weir said.

"Correct." Shen regarded her carefully for a moment before continuing. "The Alpha was using her and Ronon and several actual Guides around the city to keep himself in a functional state."

"And now?" Elizabeth asked. "Now that he has a true Guide?"

Shen pursed her lips as the stargate lit up.

"Unscheduled off-world activation!" Chuck announced. "Reading...reading Earth's IDC."

***

_Hero told me that Beatrice has often had dreams about being unhappy, and managed to wake herself from them by laughing. – Leonato, MAAN (II, i)_

***

Why was it always raining? And it was cold rain too, cold and wet and in his eyes and completely all through his clothes while he rowed the boat towards the distant specter of Atlantis with a syphilitic (he assumed) clown in the back seat.

It was totally unfair, the way he knew the whale was coming to eat him at the exact same time he knew if he could only get to Atlantis everything would be all right.

Then the clown handed him a glass of Chardonnay, and he was showing off his first diploma.

"You think you'll be a Guide before you're twenty, do you?" the clown asked, though he sounded just like his second-grade meditation instructor.

"I would be honored," he said, just as he'd said then. 

"You'd be lucky to find someone who'll tolerate that tongue of yours even stuck up their ass," his mother told him. "Look at your sister. Still a baby and already soothing everyone whenever she comes into a room."

"She's not a Guide," he told her, clutching his cheek where she would slap him. "They're calming down because I'm holding her. She's not a Guide!"

"But you're my Guide, Rodney," John said, holding him firmly in warm arms, breath ghosting over his neck and down into his bones. "You're mine now, and I'll never let you go." A strong hand smoothed over his hip and between his legs to cup his balls. "Hmm. Lookie here. These are mine too."

"Really?"

"Yup." The hand was joined by a friend, which grabbed a butt cheek. "And this one...and this one. All mine."

Rodney snorted. The second hand moved over and around to tweak a nipple. 

"Mine."

_Tweak._

"Mine."

Rodney was giggling now, half-concerned that he should be horrified. "Yes, yes. It's all yours."

Fingers danced over his lips. "Mine. Both of them. But mostly this bit here."

"That bit of my mips? Mhy?"

"Because it's the bit that goes all twisty. Makes me want to kiss it all the time. And I could, whenever I want. You know why?"

"M'cause it's yours?"

"Rodney, you're a genius."

"I know. Your genius."

"Yup."

They were quiet, warm and lost in each other. Some dim instinct screamed at him to leave it alone. When he felt his shoulders tensing, he said it almost defiantly.

"My Sentinel."

John hummed appreciatively, and Rodney felt – Oh, God, actually felt contentment and joy through the bond.

"Yours, Guide."

He opened his eyes, thinking back to that first moment when he'd seen Sheppard, all long body and spiky hair and fuckable as the day was long. He'd seen those raised eyebrows and ducked like a man in a fight. He'd seen Sheppard in pain, in the field, in command. And now John was here, all lean muscle, curled around him like Pajamas had been giving master sessions.

A green-hazel eye opened, considering him. Then, without a word, Sheppard rolled over on his back and pulled the sheet off before putting his arms out slightly from his sides.

Rodney's mouth watered and his dick got hard so quickly he felt a little dizzy.

John was just so...sex made flesh. How did he do that? He wasn't even trying, for fuck's sake.

He could be some sort of model or movie star, somebody who spent five hours in the gym every day or lounged around in Calvin Kline underwear with his hand down the front for $1,000 an hour.

But even while his looks were a fantasy, he was just so damn real. Rodney saw an old, deep scar on his right hip, two light running lines of scar tissue down his right shin. There was a slight bump on his collarbone suggesting it had been broken years ago. His toenails, quite frankly, could do with a trim.

And the smell of him – salt-sweat and something just a little sweet that was both comforting and comfortable.

And there, below the lines down the sides of his stomach and between slender but corded thighs, a shock of dark hair around a smooth, straight cock oddly naked without its foreskin, the curved head soft and luscious.

"I love looking at you," Rodney said. "I love that I get to look at you."

"I can feel your eyes on me. I can feel how much you love the way I look."

Rodney hummed, leaning over while those skilled hands slid up and around him again.

"I can feel you want to be inside me," John whispered. "It's all right. I'm not one of those types of Sentinels."

"Thank God." For the first time, Rodney let himself wallow in how much he wanted to fuck John Sheppard, his Sentinel, with his ridiculously attractive body and incredibly strong spirit. Greedily, he rolled the man over and ran trembling hands down that smooth, sleek back to his pale, tight ass.

Something he didn't recognize nudged his mind, and with a start he looked over at Kavanagh's little black box. But no, everything was working fine. In fact, he doubted even if the jury-rigged device failed that it would be able to do much to his Guide abilities now.

With a frown, he set the feeling aside in favor of running his right hand down John's right leg, feeling the tickle of dark hair, the solidity of muscle, the thin stretch of sinew. 

_"For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews,/Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,/Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans/Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands."_

"What?" John murmured, already drowsy with pleasure.

"A lost moment of my youth spent in a drama class," McKay said. "If I hadn't been a Guide, I might have gone pro."

"I'm glad you didn't. Not much call for actors here."

"You put on an act every day, John," Rodney said, tracing a lazy Celtic pattern on John's back. "Looking so laid back, drawling your way through meetings, acting like you have it covered."

"You saying I don't have it covered?" The tone was light, but Rodney felt the tension in his muscles.

"I'm saying you make it look easy, like a ballet dancer or a WWI flying ace in your Sopwith Camel. But I know what you put yourself through, how you torture yourself every day."

"Rodney."

"It's true. And I know it's been necessary." In one smooth motion, Rodney straddled John's thighs, settled into his perch, and began to rub the tension from John's shoulders. 

His feedback was the usual hum of approval at first. Then he started to warm up, and John's reactions took on a more satisfying tone.

"I get to take care of you," Rodney sing-songed under his breath. "I have waited so long to have you to take care of."

"Ow."

"Ow? You want me to stop?"

"Agh...oh, no, I don't. Please." 

"Don't ask; don't say please. I don't need that."

"What...ooohhhh...what do you need?"

"To touch you. I've been waiting to touch you my whole life. I used to practice kissing on pillows. I gave my parents back rubs. I have a little sister, Jeanie. She used to let me do body checks on her all the time – pulse, heart rate, respiration."

"I thought I'd get a Guide when the time came," John said. "My father, he was pretty pissed when I tested positive, started grooming Dave to be the heir apparent. He used to make comments about sons and rebellion, like I'd chosen to be a Sentinel. One day I told him I hoped my Guide was some hippy with a prison record just to watch him flip out."

"I was interrogated by the CIA once."

"Oh, yeah?"

"I wrote a paper in middle school about the duties of a Guide, and they said I couldn't know that much unless I'd illegally hacked the GSC."

"How long were you on ice?"

Rodney snorted, gently nudging the point of his bent elbow right into that spot below John's right shoulder blade.

"Oooh, oh! I thought you were going to fuck me."

Rodney really wanted to say something clever in response, but considering he was already hard as a rock and John's words sent a jerk through his whole body --

Then there was the strange nudge again, but this time an image accompanied it: John Sheppard on all fours, ass high, as Rodney rammed into him.

The image was hot, but he felt a wash of shame and shied away.

"I could blow you," the Guide whispered. "You'll never have it so good."

The distraction was a failure, of course. John looked at him deeply while Rodney's stomach tried to hide in his toes.

And then John smiled.

"We don't have much control over what trips our trigger, Rodney."

"I don't –"

"Sh." John never stopped smiling. "It's fine." An image came through the bond, strong and clear, with John submitting, head bowed and a smirk still dancing on his lips. Rodney's cock tried to drill a hole in the sheet.

Soon, though not soon enough, he had John's ass between his palms, his hips slamming into a hot, tight, strong, fucking perfect fucking body. The slap of flesh, the clamp of the inferno around his cock, even John's breathy moans were wonderful, but not as wonderful as the sight of his bowed head, his loose muscles, his relinquishing of control.

"Take it," Rodney muttered, even while he told himself to shut up. "Take it. Take it."

John groaned and went down to his elbows. "I've got you," he murmured. "I've got you."

All those fucking Sentinels, the endless line of seekers who tried him on like a pair of shoes and then decided he wasn't worth his price tag, who decided he wasn't right, wasn't enough. And now he had John Fucking Sheppard thrusting back on his cock and begging him for more.

Shame stabbed him, but John laughed. "Fuck me, Rodney. Fuck me all you like."

"You'll never leave me," Rodney grunted, thrusting harder, fucking as hard as he could.

"I couldn't. I could...never want to."

The Guide fell over the edge, emptying himself even as he was filled, replaced with someone who had never been turned away, and the pleasure came back at him twice as strong as the lithe, solid body of his Sentinel bucked in pleasure and they were falling together so deeply they would never truly again emerge.

***

Dr. Elizabeth Weir had once prevented the outbreak of a minor nuclear war by making a joke about the coffee.

It wasn't something she had ever considered putting on her resume, but those who had a reason to know knew all about it. Twice she'd been at a cocktail party where someone made a joke in reference.

When Elizabeth was nine years old, she learned about Prince Albert, the Consort of Queen Victoria.

Of course, at the time she'd been primarily interested in Victoria, not her nothing-consort-husband. Rising to the throne at eighteen in 1832 and ruling over a fourth of the world's population by the time she died in 1901, Queen Victoria was a figure of both admiration and disdain for Elizabeth. She was simultaneously the beloved figure of English monarchy as "the sun never set on the British Empire" and the woman who had made a high crime out of being a gay man (but not a gay woman, since she refused to acknowledge such a thing). 

She had told women to live like servants who were perpetually two seconds from fainting, and to increase the population she urged women to lie back and "think of England" after they finally shed over 200 pounds of clothing, including their whalebone corsets. 

She had championed civil rights, including the global abolition of slavery. She was a figurehead extraordinaire, and she had wielded power unlike any monarch before her.

Elizabeth had many heroes when she was nine years old, but Queen Victoria hadn't been among them. As for Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, she knew he had married his first cousin, Victoria, produced nine children with her who pretty much went on to rule Europe. He died of typhoid at forty-two, like a drone bee that had done its duty. 

What she had not known was that he had also served as an extraordinary ambassador.

Albert campaigned for many public reforms and for modernizing the British army. He was a trench fighter for advances in public health and education. He counseled a diplomatic solution between the Russian and Ottoman empires when he, not his wife, saw to the marriage of his daughter Victoria to Prince Frederick William of Prussia, a union that helped promote additional social reform while averting conflict.

He was a great advocate of science, and even proposed a -- rejected -- knighthood for Charles Darwin after the publication of _On the Origin of Species._

And, in his final year, though already suffering from the typhoid that would soon take his life, Prince Albert averted a possible war between the US (currently fighting its Civil War) and Britain simply by changing the wording of a single letter that allowed the northern US to save face.

That was enough to make him a lifelong hero for anyone, Elizabeth reasoned. And later, in college, she had read the original letter and Albert's revised version over and over, memorizing every slight turn of phrase, every euphemism, every gentle suggestion that no escalation was needed to resolve the situation.

Elizabeth thought now of what it must have been like for Albert, German, twenty years old, and a man of great education and influence, as he stood in front of Queen Victoria and waited to see if she would ask him to marry her. As Dr. Blair Fucking Sandburg and Jim Holy Shit Ellison walked out through the gate and asked to speak with her in her office, she thought of that scenario as strongly as she could.

"Would you like some tea?" she asked as she took her place behind her desk, absently hooking a foot around a chair leg.

"We need to see Sheppard and McKay," Ellison said.

"Jim, give the woman a minute to breathe," Sandburg said, rolling his eyes. "They've bonded now. We can take a moment." 

"You know that Colonel Sheppard and Dr. McKay have bonded?" she asked.

Sandburg smiled, and his whole face got in on the act. He was an attractive man, well-defined cheekbones, lips that could only be described as "pouty," and thick, dark, curly hair that fell to his shoulders. He was shorter than she had thought he would be, but compact and fit. He had the most understanding, gentle, and resolute eyes she had ever seen.

"Of course we know, Dr. Weir," he said as though they were sharing a gentle joke. "If I'd known an armadillo and beaver could rock the spirit world that hard, I'd have sent out a warning."

Ellison snorted, and it took her a conscious effort not to flinch. As much as Sandburg emanated peace and reassurance, the Sentinel managed to give off the impression he could crack golf balls with his eyelashes. Under his severely cut dark hair and strong brow, blue eyes coolly assessed her, running through a silent patrol of the door, Sandburg, through her office glass wall, and then back to her.

"An armadillo and a beaver?" she asked, then realized two seconds later what he must have meant.

Sandburg laughed. "Now you're wondering which is which," he said.

What the hell. She had a fifty-fifty shot. "The beaver must belong to Dr. McKay."

"Or McKay to the beaver," Ellison muttered, his eyes going suddenly to a corner of the room. Sandburg smiled, his own eyes going to the floor at his feet. "They're on their way."

"I'm sorry. I don't..." 

"Sheppard and McKay," Ellison said. "They're on their way."

"You know," Sandburg said, leaning forward with a smile. "I would love a cup of tea. How about you, Jim?"

"Whatever you say, Chief."

She turned quickly to the tea set behind her, filling three cups and asking questions about lemon and sugar until the ritual had done all the calming the Guide had intended.

"It was my understanding that communication between spirit guides was extremely rare," Elizabeth explained as they settled back with their cups. 

"It is," Sandburg said, smiling again. 

She set her cup down. "Are you here to request that my military commander and chief science officer return to Earth?"

Ellison raised his brows. "Don't you mean your pet Sentinel and Guide?"

"Would you like me to call for Ambassador Xiaoyi?" she asked, curling a fist tightly under the cover of her desk.

"If it would make you more comfortable," Sandburg said carefully.

"I'm not prepared to lose key personnel to a matter I don't understand, and I have been...warned against asking questions when things have progressed so far."

"Things?" Ellison rumbled.

"I assure you that nothing has progressed anywhere at present, Dr. Weir," Sandburg said, and for the first time there was a hint of frost in his voice.

"I don't want to lose them," she blurted, then felt rather horrified at herself. 

"Because?" the Guide prompted. 

"We'd be dead seven times over without Colonel Sheppard, and McKay's work since he got to the city has been invaluable to the most important reasons we came out here in the first place."

"Oh?" Ellison asked.

She set her hands in place on her desk. "If the SCG objects to my handling of the...situation with Colonel Sheppard, I would like to make it clear at this juncture that I would be willing to step down."

"Now that the Sentinel has claimed his Guide, he will claim his pride," Sandburg said.

"What does that mean?" 

"Dr. Weir?" The call from Lorne came over the PA.

She slapped a hand to her ear piece. "Yes, Major?"

_"Colonel Sheppard just called from the mainland. He and McKay have a fifteen-minute ETA."_

"Understood. Thank you." She killed the connection, looking at her empty cup.

"Elizabeth." The name came, surprisingly enough, from Ellison. "We're not here to ask you to step down or to ask Sentinel Sheppard to leave his posting of choice. This is a diplomatic visit, one pride to another."

She instantly swallowed the objection that Sheppard didn't have a pride.

"In what way may I accommodate you?" she asked instead.

"Look, we just want to talk to the Alpha Prime Sentinel and Guide of the Pegasus Galaxy," Sandburg said, smiling again.

"The armadillo insisted," Ellison grumbled.

Elizabeth she wouldn't be alone for two minutes before she was Googling the spirit guide qualities of armadillos and beavers.

Wait. Sandburg had said Alpha Prime.

"Dr. Weir." 

"Yes, Chuck?

_"Ma'am, we're picking up an unusual energy signature from Pier 3. It seems to be coming from Dr. Hewston's lab."_

"Excuse me, gentlemen," she murmured, rising quickly to walk out of her office and over to Chuck's console.

_"The signal's gone, ma'am,"_ he said quietly.

"Dr. Hewston," Elizabeth called over the radio. "Status report."

_"Is Dr. McKay available?"_ the scientist radioed back.

_"McKay here. What the hell was that?"_

_"I've tripped some sort of alarm, sir. I've shut down the simulation. We're reading zero across the board."_

The radio silence lasted several ominous seconds.

_"Lock it down. I'll be there to look at it later. Take your team to lunch or dinner or whatever meal it is."_

_"Yes, sir."_

_"Dr. Grodin."_

_"Yes, Dr. McKay?"_

_"I want a sensor sweep for radiation in the Delta grid pattern."_

Grodin got clarification for duration and half-lives, and Elisabeth tuned them out while Chuck ran through the basic post-what-the-heck-was-that protocols. Sooner than she expected, the jumper hangar opened, and the puddlejumper holding Sheppard and his team was coming through.

God, she didn't want to lose Atlantis. All she'd have at home was her dog and fading memories of the man she'd loved more than life.

Fifteen minutes after the puddlejumper had safely docked, she was escorting Sandburg and Ellison to a small conference room. Inside, she found McKay stabbing furiously at a tablet while Sheppard slouched in a chair with his arms crossed. Ronon and Teyla were absent, unfortunately. She really could have used a little Athosian/Setedan calm right now.

"Elizabeth," Sheppard said, rising slowly, and there was something in the movement she'd never seen before, something in his green-hazel eyes as well. She thought maybe she was looking at the John Sheppard who could have been hunting in the jungle or following the flight of birds a mile into the sky.

McKay turned his tablet over and stood in a sort of declaration of unity, his shoulders back ever-so-slightly, and she flashed to that moment of their first meeting in the Gate room, when Sheppard had crouched and McKay had expanded.

If it hadn't been for the chip in McKay's brain, would they have bonded right then and there? Just how much had she failed everyone in this room, including herself?

And Dillon. Had she failed him worst of all? She could have kept her husband on base and ordered Sheppard to lead the team.

She felt her shoulders curl in. "I'll leave you all to –"

"No, please," Dr. Sandburg said. "We'd like you to be here, Dr. Weir."

"Please, call me Elizabeth," she told the room, sinking into a chair as far into the corner as she could manage and telling herself it was so she could get the best view of the room.

Indeed, having the two Guide/Sentinel pairs stare at each other was the oddest confrontation she had ever seen, beating even a deposed head jailer and medical liaison of an Uzbekistan concentration camp.

Ellison and Sandburg had walked into the room as though they were about to host a tea party, while Sheppard and McKay might as well have been standing in tribal council on Survivor. 

"I hope you will forgive our coming in like this," Sandburg said as he and Ellison easily took their seats, "but they kinda wouldn't leave us alone."

"I'm not ready for you," Sheppard said, still standing, blank and impassive with his Guide at his side.

"This is an informal visit," Ellison said, looking pointedly at those empty seats.

"So is a head cold," McKay grumbled, taking a seat with his arms already crossed.

"Look, this is a pretty fucked-up problem," Ellison said, watching Sheppard ooze into a chair. "But for a few hundred years this was pretty simple. Sandburg and I would recognize you as our successors, and that would be that."

_Okay, so he did say Alpha Prime. The two most powerful Guide/Sentinel pairs known to humanity are sitting in this room with me._ Elizabeth kept her breathing steady as clockwork.

"Rodney and I will never return to Earth," Sheppard said, startling her.

Sandburg chuckled. "Yeah, we kinda noticed."

"As Alpha Primes of the Earth, and, as far as we know, the Milky Way Galaxy, I'm here to establish diplomatic relations with the Alpha Primes of the Pegasus Galaxy," Ellison said, teeth grinding. "If you can spare the time from your busy day."

As Elizabeth tried not to have a heart attack, the colonel narrowly eyed Ellison and the Sandburg for a full minute, then just seemed to flow into...something less ready to kill everyone in the room. McKay actually smiled, though faintly, and stayed seated.

"In that case, Alpha Prime," Colonel Sheppard said while extending a hand. "I welcome you and Alpha Prime Guide Sandburg to our neck of the woods."

"Alpha Prime," Ellison said, taking his hand in a strong shake.

"Alpha Prime," Sandburg said, standing now with his Sentinel and extending a hand toward McKay. 

"What? Seriously?" McKay said, standing.

"Rodney," Sheppard rumbled.

"Okay, okay. Alpha Prime," the scientist said, and shook Sandburg's hand to the Guide's evident amusement.

"Permission?" Ellison asked Sheppard next.

The colonel nodded then asked, "Permission?"

While Ellison nodded, Sandburg and McKay's eyes met, one set amused, the other just a little indignant.

The Sentinels walked around the table, effectively replacing each other, and then squared off in front of the other's Guide.

Sandburg nodded graciously, his eyes just a little mischievous, before Sheppard leaned in and lightly – there was no other word for it – sniffed at him. 

McKay did a little side-step jerk at the sight, then visibly calmed himself and looked at Ellison. The muscle mountain with blue eyes smiled gently, then leaned in and sniffed for a moment. McKay held himself with the ease of a hummingbird confronting a jet engine, or maybe a jet engine confronting a hummingbird, but he submitted to the ceremony without further complaint.

After a moment everyone returned to their original positions and sat. Elizabeth realized she wasn't breathing and forced her ribcage to relax.

"So," McKay – of course it was McKay – said. "What's the next step? I mean, seeing as we're making ground-breaking history and all that."

"According to Incacha –"

"No!" McKay said, breaking off Sandburg's tentative answer. "I refuse to do anything dictated to us by a dead witchdoctor."

" _Rod_ ney," Sheppard said, though he was partially drowned out by Sandburg's "Hey!" and Ellison's quiet growl.

"What?" McKay demanded. "The guy was some Peruvian voodoo bead-shaker, right? I don't care if he's speaking from the grave, we're dealing with 21st century problems here, and nothing's going to get better from an application of acai berries and Amazon water."

"McKay!" Sheppard snapped. "If someone's taking the trouble to speak from the dead, he probably has something to say."

"What? 'Get that trash off my grave'?" McKay rolled his eyes. "Does Mr. Dead have a clue what we're dealing with here?"

"Actually, he said we are dealing with the 'sickness walking.' Which I take to mean he meant the Wraith."

"Because that's so exact."

"Which, I believe, Dr. McKay, means he was trying to say there is medicine for a cure."

"If we're talking about the Wraith," Sheppard said, "I want Ronon and Teyla here."

"Later," Ellison said. "I want to know what the Guide/Sentinel breakdown is here in Pegasus."

"A few, scattered here and there." Sheppard shrugged a little further into his chair, and for the first time the power of his body struck her. Elizabeth was kind of put off, though she knew as a woman it should be a sexual – sensual, a subliminal kind of awareness. 

Instead, she simply thought, _Beware, power here._ It was kind of unsettling. 

"So you think the Wraith understood the significance of Sentinels and Guides?" Ellison asked.

"No," McKay said, obviously focusing on something not in the room. "The Wraith only care about flavor. They love the taste of defiance, and they love the taste of the ATA gene. But they don't distinguish Sentinels and Guides from regular humans. They love to devour strength, power, ambition, deep love, the desire to live. It's like steak sauce on crack to them."

Everyone in the room stared at him.

"It's clear from the reports in the database," McKay muttered.

"So is that something we can use against them?" Ellison asked. 

"Definitely," Sheppard said, "but we have to figure out how."

"It will be easier once you get your pride together properly," Sandburg said.

There was a sort of dark pause.

"Yes," Sheppard said, looking at the table. Elizabeth kept still.

"If the Wraith learn about the location of Earth, then our world is done," Ellison said.

"I know that," Sheppard growled.

"It won't be great for the Pegasus citizens either," Sandburg said. "They'll probably drain everyone here dry for the journey over."

"I said, if we're going to talk about the Wraith, I want Ronon and Teyla to be here."

"Look, it's not like I know what we're doing here either," Ellison growled. "All I know for sure is that your mission has created a new threat to Earth, and I need to assess it."

"We've read through your mission reports, seen the videos, got the T-shirt," Sandburg said. 

"You want to meet a Wraith," Sheppard said.

"You've captured one before," Ellison said.

"No," McKay snapped. "I won't allow a live Wraith here on the city. And outside the city there's no place to keep one contained safely."

Everyone in the room was quiet for just a moment, and Elizabeth felt the oddest sense crawl up her spine, like she could almost hear the wind howl through the eaves of an old house. 

"Yeah, that's the thing, man," Sandburg said, nodding. "We have a Wraith in mind already."

"Your roster says you're taking two scientists to survey a Lagrangian Point satellite in a few days," Ellison said.

"Gall and Abrams," McKay said.

"Yeah," Sandburg said. "There's a Wraith there."

***

Dr. Grace Hewston looked at her tablet. She had only five minutes before she would be dead, but she didn't know exactly how long five minutes would be.

Her best guess was four months. Give or take a month.

Unlike so many on the expedition, she was not only a theist, but a Christian. So it was to Jesus she prayed...sort of.

_Please, God, please, Jesus, please help McKay realize something is wrong._

***

It was difficult to explain later just why he had agreed with everything Dr. Sandburg had ordered him to do.

No, that was just the thing, wasn't it? He hadn't ordered anything. He had only _suggested._

"I think it would be a great idea to see the schematics on the satellite before we launch, don't you think so, Rodney?"

"You know, if this Wraith has been alive for ten thousand years, we’d better pack more serious firepower. Don't you agree, Rodney?"

"Abrams and Gall certainly deserve to see the satellite, but we'd do better having them come on the next trip, right, Rodney?"

_Yes, Rodney. No, Rodney. Why don't you bend over and kiss your right buttock, Rodney?_

No, that wasn't fair. And Sandburg, damn him, demanded fairness. He was tempted to shove a flea in Zelenka's ear and set the Czech bastard on the man. (Did he really think people didn't know Radek was longing for a Sentinel?) 

He could slide Kavanagh a note, _Dear Kevin. I love you. Do you love me? Check this box. Signed, Yer Gide._

But the real pisser, the absolute killer, was that even though Rodney knew he was being manipulated by a powerful and talented Guide, even though he completely understood exactly how Sandburg was doing it, he just couldn't really couldn't bring himself to care all that much.

Frankly, he was fairly certain that right now rat bastard Dave Foley could get a Nobel Prize and he wouldn't care all that much. It was quite possible his arms could fall off and he wouldn’t care all that much.

Everything was John Patrick Sheppard.

Everything was John.

Warm, caring, careful, desperate John.

As he'd feared, John was, no question, the strongest man he had ever met. One of the strongest men ever to be born. He was one of those who wouldn't crack, never, ever.

The whole thing worried the fuck out of him.

He'd had no idea that anyone could hate themselves so much before he had slid himself into John's mind. He had no idea if the love he felt for his Sentinel could ever be enough to fill that abyss of John's self-loathing.

No, not loathing. John didn't hate himself, really. He was just constantly riding himself, berating himself, pissed off that he wasn't perfect, wasn't saving everyone, wasn't God and The Guy and the Terminator all rolled into one.

How did he live with it? Rodney wondered again, lost now in that feeling of a cavernous room where every whisper echoed, yet no means known to mankind could take away the chill.

His Sentinel hurt every day, every moment someone suffered or died and he couldn't stop it. All Rodney could offer was...

Well, obviously not enough. He loved John with everything he had, a passion burning so brightly he was blinded by his own abilities, but no light in the universe could extinguish that particular black hole of John's despair.

The door to Lab Six opened without warning, which meant the city was comfortable letting whoever it was through.

Rodney, however, felt anything but comfortable as Ronon stalked into the lab, looking like he could strangle/mangle/mutilate anything in his path, including a kitten nursing kittens if they didn't know better than to get out of his way.

"Ronon!" McKay greeted, all the while thinking Norm! and wishing he could stop.

"McKay," the behemoth breathed, vibrating the floor. "Sheppard says it's just the two of you on the next mission."

Rodney tried his best to stand straighter. "Yes. Well, yes. I, er, but with the Sentinel team here. I mean, er, Ellison and Sandwich."

Ronon knew him too well to respond to the obvious distraction. 

"I want to come."

"And you're asking me?" McKay asked, pressing against his own chest.

"You're the Guide."

"So?" 

"If you ask Sheppard, he'll say yes."

"But I can't ask him. I can't ask him for anything if I don't mean it."

Ronon growled.

"Not that I wouldn't personally like to have you with us!" Rodney said. "I mean, why wouldn't I?"

"Then ask."

McKay took a breath, found his center, and looked into that bearded, incredibly intimidating face. "If I question my Sentinel about his methods of defending me, I'm implying that I don't trust him, that I know better about keeping us safe than he does. I won't do that to John."

Ronon scowled, unscowled, and then actually smiled, ever so slightly.

"Then don't ask him because you doubt him. Ask him because I've asked you for a favor."

"A favor?"

"Yeah."

"How is your coming with us a favor?"

"Someday," Ronon said, "and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, accept this justice as a gift."

For two full seconds McKay stared at him. Then in a move that would later baffle him at its boldness, he smacked the Setedan on the arm. 

"You fucker!"

***

"Stay there," the Sentinel growled.

With a quiet smile, the Guide remained standing in the doorway between rooms, outlined in the white light from above the lavatory. The curves of his chest, the soft, deep shine of his long curly hair, the dip and swell of his strong, tender buttocks and thighs: all were illuminated as the hard edge of the light softened and dimmed along his downy skin.

This small, powerful, perfect body was his haven, his reward, his comfort, his other self. Even from across the room, he could feel the warmth of his Guide's skin, hear the beat of his heart and the rush of air in his lungs. And there was his Guide's smell: a little salt, a little soap, a little incense, a little something sweet underneath it all.

"Looks like you started without me," Blair murmured, looking slightly down.

Jim shook his head. "Just thinking about you; just seeing you."

He saw the muscles under Blair's skin start to tense and shook his head again.

"No, stay there."

"Jim..."

"Please."

Blair huffed slightly, but stayed. 

Jim rocked his head back, turning all his senses up to full while focusing only on his Guide.

Though they were 6.78 feet apart, he could feel Blair’s warmth against his skin, smell the 42 discrete scents that came from his body, hear his heartbeat and the blood in his veins, see the dilation of his pupils and the slight flush of his skin, taste the molecules of _Guide Guide Guide_ in the air. A sixth sensation lit through his mind, indescribable.

A memory flashed between them: Sentinel on the bed, Guide kneeling over him, coming and coming over Jim’s stomach until 235,457,891 sperm danced on his skin, wriggling delight and making him, in Blair’s words, explode like a super nova.

_Your kisses are as wicked as an F-16,_  
And you fuck like a volcano  
And you’re everything to me. 

He could pick up the melody – if you could call it that – from Blair’s mind, but he shook his head minutely. That wasn’t what he wanted right now.

Blair tilted his head while a couple dozen other scenarios clicked between them.

At one, Ellison smiled.

Slowly, oh so slowly, the Guide crept closer, and then suddenly threw himself over the edge of the bed, presenting his round, perfect ass, and the ointment that Ellison had smelled glistened between his cheeks.

It wasn’t a groan or a growl or a whimper – definitely not a whimper – that Ellison made as he walked the two steps to the bed to pile-drive his way inside that slick, hot, tight space. But it was pretty close to all three.

The Sentinel’s hips snapped forward so hard Ellison ended up doubling over Sandburg’s back, smushing his Guide’s face into the blankets before pulling back in alarm tinged with guilt.

“Blair,” he whispered, even as his body gathered itself.

“More.”

“Blair.”

“More, please, Jim.” Sandburg rocked back against him, moaning in bliss.

Something went snap in Ellison’s head, and then there was only his hands on sharp hips, pistoning forward and back, and heat and warmth and joy. 

***

In the end, of course, the whole team went, plus Earth’s Alpha Prime Sentinel and Guide. Teyla somehow found a way to meditate or sleep during the fifteen-hour flight. Ronon stared off into space, did about a thousand push-ups, and slept.

Ellison and Sandburg curled around each other in a way that should have been awkward, except they seemed to fit 100% into each other's space, and slept almost the entire way.

John and Rodney mostly looked at each other.

Rodney had no doubt what he wanted: John, naked, horny, happy. That was pretty much the sum of his ambitions right now, which should have bothered him, but didn’t…except that he knew it should bother him, even though it didn’t, and that kind of bothered him, or at least should have bothered him.

Groaning at himself and ignoring John’s eyebrow, McKay ran through the energy reading logs and found pretty much nothing at all to hold his interest.

“Flying lesson?”

Rodney looked up, startled both by the comment and green of his Sentinel’s eyes.

“Flying lesson?”

Sheppard smirked. Of course he did.

“A lesson, McKay, on flying. You need to learn how to use this thing, you know.”

“Yes. I know. In fact, before you and I…were you and I, I took several lessons. I’m not a bad pilot, in fact.”

“Really?” John leaned back and away from the controls then swung his body out and away, bowing slightly to offer the pilot’s chair to his Guide.

Things went okay at first, but it soon became apparent McKay had been overstating his abilities, at least somewhat.

“Ease up on the controls a little,” Sheppard said.

“I'm fine.”

“You're going to snap the damn things off. Ease up.”

“I'm just seeing what this baby can do.”

Ronon snorted. “Did you just call the puddlejumper a baby?”

“It's perfectly appropriate space pilot parlance,” McKay sniffed.

“Just try to fly the baby in a straight line,” John said.

“I'm flying in a straight line.”

With another raised eyebrow, John brought the HUD up to show Rodney’s weaving path.

McKay ducked his shoulders. “Well, in space, all motion is relative.”

“It’s not relative if you’re making this flight take longer, McKay,” Ronon rumbled.

“Hey!” Rodney swiveled back to glare.

John smacked the back of his Guide’s chair. “Don't let go of the controls!”

“Snapping at me doesn't help!”

John rolled his eyes. “This is why parents get someone else to teach their kids how to drive.”

“I am both insulted and touched by that.” Actually, McKay looked rather pleased. 

Ronon snorted again, while Teyla smiled. Then, like everyone else in the jumper, they were looking out the front screen at a weapon the size of a small town, black and gray and sharp against the backdrop of deep space.

_And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts._  
And I looked, and behold a pale horse,   
And his name that sat on him was Death,   
And hell followed with him. 

John shook the voice of Johnny Cash out of his head. The Lagrangian Point satellite was certainly a sight worthy of the Man in Black, but this wasn’t the time for lyrics culled out of the memory of a dozen jukeboxes. 

"Man! It looks like a few million knives having an orgy!" Sandburg said, then glared when everyone turned to look at him.

"Sandburg has a point," Ellison defended, then shot his Guide an extra glance.

"Big weapons later," McKay said. "Wraith now, right?" He typed a few commands into his table and nodded. "I'm getting something in the ultra-low frequency range." 

A strangely unpleasant noise came from his table's tiny speakers, and Sheppard felt the hair on his neck rise. "It’s coming from the satellite?"

"No, from a planet. It's a distress call. A Wraith distress call."

John nodded and passed the satellite by, taking a direct course to the source of the signal. They were soon in orbit around an intensely bright planetary sphere.

"I'm reading very little life" McKay, then fiddled more with his tablet. "Except for this odd little pulses whizzing around. Big birds, maybe?"

"You picking up the Wraith?" Ronon rumbled.

"No, but I'm getting readings that match a damaged Wraith ship, definitely the source of the signal." McKay grunted in frustration. "The planet's atmosphere is extremely ionized. It's making getting a clear reading difficult."

"The Wraith is hibernating," Ellison said. John felt a hand near his shoulder and turned to look into the Sentinel Prime's sharp blue eyes. "Feel for it where dreams should be."

John was about to retort that he would skip that lesson in Sentinel mysticism when he felt it: metallic, restless even in the deepest sleep, and so very, very hungry.

"John," Rodney called softly, his hand warm on the Sentinel's forearm.

"Oh, we have got to kill that," Sheppard said, blinking out his mini-zone-out.

"We take it alive," Ellison said.

"Then we kill it," Ronon added.

"When we've learned what we can from it," Sandburg said, his face pale from the abomination fingering his mind, "you can kill it twice, man."

With a nod at whatever, Sheppard prepared to land.

***

"Your defiance will be sweeter than any food I have had for centuries."

"Yeah, well, I'm fairly certain you haven't had any food at all for centuries," McKay said, typing into his tablet constantly. "So, not much of a threat, really, especially considering."

The Wraith – an incredibly ugly mash-up of Marilyn Manson, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Ziggy Stardust – hissed in displeasure, as it had been doing since they left the desert planet and its greedy little light bugs far behind.

“Just dial down the smell, Jim,” Blair murmured after the Alpha shuddered slightly.

“It’s already down to zero, Chief.”

Rodney shot John a look of guilty alarm. “Oh! I should have thought of that!”

“It’s taken care of, McKay,” Sheppard said, then nodded to the back of the puddlejumper. “I’m thinking he looks like a Derek.”

“You and I have obviously not met the same Dereks,” McKay muttered.

“So, Derek,” Sheppard said, turning away from the controls to look at the Wraith properly. 

He and Ellison had taken the creature down with little fanfare, honing in on its fetid stench to discover it lurking in the shadows of a hive-like room then riddling its legs with bullets until it had collapsed. John didn’t want to think how hard it would have been to subdue the Wraith if it had fed lately. As it was, at McKay’s suggestion John had severed its feeding hand, leaving the still-crawling appendage on some scrubby dune, and it was obvious “Derek” would die before they made it back to Atlantis.

That had been the only way Sheppard would agree to the ops. He wouldn’t have a live Wraith in the city.

As it was, the insect-like eyes that glared at him showed no sign of the weakness the Wraith had to be feeling. He felt again that push against his mental shields, feeble against the strength he drew from his Guide, but impressive nevertheless. A mind like that would be able to do quite a bit to a norm, including hallucinations, maybe even just a little mind control.

He thought, inevitably, of a cobra hypnotizing its prey before it struck.

Derek hissed again.

“Stop it,” McKay said suddenly. “You can’t reach him, and you can’t reach me, let alone them.” He jerked his head towards Ellison and Sandburg.

“We reached your kind before,” Derek rattled out. “You were nothing before us.”

“That’s not what we’ve read,” Sheppard said. “The Ancient Sentinels and Guides caused quite a few problems for you guys.”

“And yet they were defeated!”

“Well, it’s really more a case of their running away from you, right?” Sheppard crossed his arms as he slouched a little lower in his pilot’s chair. “They decided they’d rather float around the galaxy as glowing squids than keep getting their life force sucked out of their chests. Not a choice we’re going to make, though.”

“Their guilt made them cowards,” Derek said, his eyes just barely drifting before they snapped back to challenge him.

“Rodney, we got any sandwiches left?” 

“What? Oh, er, yes. Here.” McKay rooted in a backpack and came up with a slightly squished round of ham-on-wheat. Ellison and Sandburg reached over, and soon everyone was chewing away, though Rodney’s fake enthusiasm tore a little at John’s concentration. His Guide truly was a terrible liar.

“Not quite sure what they had to feel guilty about,” Sandburg said to the ceiling.

“Oh, you know,” Sheppard said. “File sharing, not returning your DVDs on time. It wears anyone down after a while.”

“You know nothing,” Derek sneered.

“We know about Iratus bugs,” McKay said then snapped his fingers in a little rhythm. “You guys were just another experiment in Ascension, weren’t you?”

“McKay?” John looked at his Guide.

“They figured Iratus bugs lived on life force, and they wanted to become pure life force – energy freed from matter. They probably thought if they could figure out what fed the bugs…” Rodney shook his head. “So…what? They made a human-bug hybrid so they could ask it questions?”

“Rodney, are you sure?” Sheppard asked.

“Why else would they feel guilt? And it’s not just Derek’s say-so. Every entry they’ve got about the Wraith is laden with mea culpa.”

“So they created the scourge of the galaxy because they wanted to understand some bug’s feeding process?”

“What, you’re saying this is less crazy than explode-a-tumor?”

“Point.”

“They were probably trying to refine the Iratus bug’s feeding process, break it down to its most essential nutrient – namely, living essence.”

“And they failed,” Ellison said.

McKay rolled his eyes. “Of course they did! The Wraith don’t feed on our souls. They feed on our chemical compounds. The whole ‘growing old’ thing is just a mimetic response to the loss of a specific blend of amino acids and – look, it’s like thinking you could breathe in the scent of a cake and somehow burp up a muffin. They just don’t have anything to do with each other beyond some English major’s metaphor.”

“So why not destroy the experiment when it was done?” Sandburg asked. “Why turn them loose on the rest of the galaxy?”

“Because they probably didn’t bother to contain their control subjects in the first place.” McKay snorted. “Seriously, ‘arrogant’ doesn’t begin to define these guys.”

“We fed,” Derek said with the voice of doom, but John could easily see the life going out of those slice-pupil eyes now. “We fed on those who would keep us tame.”

“And once they fed on their guards, or the scientists, or whoever was there, it was probably a hop-skip to freedom,” McKay said. “The Ancients probably could have stopped them then, if they’d really given a shit.”

Sheppard nodded, then took out his 9-mil, sighted, and put three between Derek’s rheumy eyes.

***

So pale in the light of their room, half-iridescent, half-moonlight, McKay’s skin against the gray of their military issue sheets. Rodney’s blue eyes brighter than the moon as they gazed up, offering everything.

_This Is Just To Say_

_I have eaten_  
the plums  
that were in  
the icebox 

_and which_  
you were probably  
saving  
for breakfast 

_Forgive me_  
they were delicious  
so sweet  
and so cold  
  
He’d slid himself halfway in when everything tightened down, his Guide’s body suddenly demanding no further entrance.

“Rodney?”

“Why did they leave?” McKay’s eyes burned lasers of curiosity through lust more effectively than a cold shower.

“They were here to make an assessment of the Wraith threat, and they made it. So they went home.”

“No, no. I don’t buy that.”

“Rodney…” John pushed slightly forward, but met the same protesting tension.

“They were here to make an assessment of us,” the Guide insisted. “They wanted to see if we were up for it.”

“And they left. I’m guessing they were okay with leaving us here.”

“Ellison wanted to know what Bob thought about the whole thing!”

“He just asked if my spirit animal had made an appearance, Rodney.”

“I thought Elizabeth was going to ask Sandburg if he wanted a foot rub.”

John started to laugh. It only made him harder, though.

“God, Rodney. Don’t change.”

“I’m serious! And don’t tell me you appreciated Ellison leaving his scent everywhere. I’ve seen less rubbing on corners from cats in heat.”

John looked down at his body entwined with his Guide’s. His hips were snug against Rodney’s ass, just ready to make that little push down and up. Rodney’s chest was high, arched against the sheets, nipples sharp points of pleasure. 

John had his hands just there at Rodney’s waist, tilting him up, and it was almost more than he could bear not to push forward. He wanted into his Guide now, but those blue eyes were demanding something from him, and he had to give it.

“Do you want me to kill them?” John asked.

Actual sparks of confusion seemed to erupt from his Guide’s eyes.

He tried again. “Do you want me to –“

“Of course I don’t want you to kill them! What the hell are you talking about?!”

John took a breath, then another. “I need in you, Guide. Do you need me to kill them first?”

“What the fuck are you – oh, fuck!” McKay’s eyes went wide and horrified. “Oh, I’m the worst Guide in the history of the world! No! No! You have me!” The resistance in McKay’s body melted away, smothered and gone. “No! I give you everything! All that I have is yours!”

Rodney’s hands grabbed at Sheppard’s lean ass, pulling forwards. “In me. In me now, Sentinel. Claim your Guide.”

John slid the rest of the way Home. He remained there, suspended for a time out of mind. This was the warmth and comfort and joy of his Guide. He really wished it weren’t this difficult to get to.

Guilt not his own cut through him.

“I’m so sorry,” Rodney whispered. “You can have this whenever. I mean it. I want to give you all that I have and –“

“Shhh. You’re doing the best you can.” 

John thrust forward, then eased back, again and again. Rodney whimpered a little.

“Why can’t you just take me?”

John shook his head, thrusting in a rhythm now. “What?”

“I don’t want you to be limited by what I can sign up for. I just want what I have to be yours. I want you to be able to…oh, oh…Just to bend me over and take…shit…whatever you want, whenever you want.”

“I want you, Rodney. You need to be there for it.”

“I would – Oh, shit, oh shit – I would be there. I’d be totally there, but it would be available for you whenever you want.”

“I don’t want ‘it.’ I want you.”

“I want – oh, oh, please, a little harder, a little more – I want to be there for you any time you want, damn it. Don’t you get it?”

“What? Like…oh, God, you feel so good…like an ice-cream cone for a good boy?”

“No! I don’t remotely think of you…oh, more. Oh more.”

“Think of me as what?”

“John!” Strong, agile fingers gripped his hips, urging him faster. John breathed out along Rodney’s broad chest, then was breathing him in, all coffee and sweat and something else like lemongrass.

“Take everything I have!” Rodney shouted, shoving himself up higher, bending higher even as it stole his breath. “Don’t you get it? Fuck them and their Alpha bullshit! I am only here for you, so fucking take it!”

John ground his forehead into Rodney’s shoulder, snarling in frustration. He pulled back, forcing himself to look into a blueness that excluded him.

And Rodney McKay looked back at him in confusion, filling his Sentinel with defeat.

“No!” Rodney shouted, grabbing his Sentinel by his shoulders. And suddenly those blue eyes – God, he couldn’t think of them as eyes without their color – rounded with understanding.

“Yes, now,” Rodney whispered, letting go of sanity to let his Sentinel fully inside.

It wasn’t experience, life stories, even identity. The literature had been so sorely lacking. Maybe the authors knew only those who knew could know, that to discuss something so obvious, so secret was pointless. Only those who knew could understand, and only those who could understand could know.

Meredith Rodney McKay simply let himself stop being. 

And John Patrick Sheppard filled him up.

Dimly, deliciously, Rodney was aware of a fullness and pressure, friction against the head of his penis like a sort of footnote while fire massaged him from inside.

And he knew he had won, even as a voice called his name in complete union at last. 

“Rodney!”

And he answered simply, completely. It was sort of 1+1=2 perfect, if someone wanted to know the truth.

“John.”


End file.
